Accord of Honor

Kevin O. McLaughlin

Role of the Hero Publishing

Contents

Copyright

About the Book

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin O. McLaughlin

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, businesses, events, or locales in purely coincidental.

About the Book

War over energy resources devastated the Earth and her colony on the moon. A new agreement was reached between the nations of the world: The Lunar Accord. Designed to end the possibility of war in space for all time, it bars nations or individuals from arming ships in space.

Twenty peaceful years have passed since the Accord was signed. Now someone has broken the rules, and now armed ships are attacking freighters and kidnapping their crews.

One man saw the danger, all those years ago - Admiral Nicholas Stein, hero and villain of the last war. He argued against the Accord and was ridiculed for it.

Now he and his son Thomas are all that stands between humanity and a ruthless enemy who will stop at nothing to control space - and from there, enslave us all.

For my Elizabeth.

Exclusive for fans of the Accord series!

Find out how the story started… When Captain Nicholas Stein set out to stop one enemy ship, and set in motion events which shaped the course of human history for decades to come.

http://kevinomclaughlin.com/accordoffire/

Chapter 1

Thomas

The quiet beep of a proximity alert was a welcome distraction from the chess game I was losing. Served me right, really. I was the one who bet Andrew I could beat the ship’s computer with the program set on maximum level. I shook my head. I wasn’t going to win this one and it frustrated me. I hated losing, but it looked like I’d be the one buying drinks for us when we got back to Mars. I pressed the screen to save the game and call up a computer projection of the space around our ship. We were in deep space, flying back from the asteroid belt and Mars-bound with a hold full of ore.

“What’ve we got?” I asked. The alert meant that there was something in space near enough to our ship that a collision was a possibility. At the speed were going, it meant the computer needed to alert us to things that might be kilometers away. Even so, it didn’t happen often. Space is an empty place. But our ship was moving fast enough that a decent sized rock would make quite an impression so the ship’s computer kept a constant lookout for anything big enough to be a problem. Just in case.

Andrew Liddel was in his seat, running his fingers through short, blonde hair as the computer pulling up data on the alert. He and I had been crew together on my last cruise. That was years ago, before I was yanked out of space and sent to Earth for college. Six years stuck on the ground! I hadn’t wanted to go, but my father insisted. Thankfully, Andy and I just snapped back into our old rhythms without any trouble.

“It’s a ship, Thomas,” he replied, reading the data off his screen. “Looks like it was cruising without power and kicked its engines on when we came close. That’s why we didn’t see it before.”

“Some sort of engine trouble?” I asked.

“Nope. Not seeing anything to indicate they’re running at less than a hundred percent,” he said. “Not sure what they’re doing out here. They’re accelerating toward us though.”

“Some sort of joyride, maybe?” asked Wilson. He was piloting this shift. As ship’s captain, I worked my shifts on that duty alone, but everyone else rotated through duties. I didn’t know Wilson well yet, not well enough for a first name basis, so I stuck with the name on his shipsuit’s nametag. The three of us were the only bridge crew right now, although I was half expecting more crew to show up shortly. Trips through space were pretty boring most of the time. But it was the less boring parts that could get you killed.

“It’s an expensive one, if so,” I replied. Something about the ship was bothering me. It felt like something out of my father’s space-war sims. If this was one of those games, then the ship had been laying in wait for us and now it was headed on an intercept course. I’d read that as hostile intent. But that wasn’t possible. No ship had been attacked in space, not since the Lunar Accords were signed into law.

I hit a button on my console to broadcast on speakers around the entire ship.

“I need everyone to strap in. We’ve got another ship out here, headed our way. Be ready for unusual acceleration or maneuvering in one minute.”

I clicked a button that set a timer counting down in the corner of all the cockpit screens. Then I looked up again. “Wilson, as soon as that one minute timer runs down, give me one gravity of acceleration on our current heading. Let’s see how he reacts.” He nodded in reply.

“Andrew,” I said, “I need you to start plotting a course to carry us away from that ship in a long, broad loop – then back toward Mars on a shortest flight path.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Heading for home? Why?”

“Bad feeling,” I replied. “Just plot it as a precaution.”

The minute went by and we punched up our acceleration, the boost pushing us all back into our seats. The ship’s ion drives could manage a lot more, but anything over a gravity of acceleration – nine point eight meters per second per second, the speed an object fell toward Earth – was tough on the crew to maintain for long. The other ship spotted the change to our acceleration and altered their heading and speed to match us. They were going to pass within rock-tossing distance if nothing else changed. Everything about this screamed to me that something was wrong. Ships don’t cross paths like that in space. Too many chances for something to go wrong. No sane crew took risks like this.

“Got a radio call coming in from the other ship,” Andrew said.

“Put it on speakers,” I replied. “Maybe they’ll tell us what the hell they’re doing.”

The speakers in the control room buzzed, and then the message crackled out of them. “Transport vessel, you are being seized as our property. We have the ability to eliminate your ship if we choose. You are ordered to stop all acceleration, shut down your drive, and prepare to be boarded. Failure to comply will be fatal. If you comply you will live. We will demonstrate our resolve in thirty seconds. End transmission.”

Several seconds went by in complete silence, none of us able to say a word.

“Is this a joke?” Wilson asked.

“It’s not funny, if it is,” replied Andrew. He looked at me, eyes wide. “Thomas?”

My mind raced while that cold feeling I’d had in my gut solidified into an icicle. This wasn’t a game. I hit the ship’s intercom.

“Thomas here. We’ve got a ship nearby threatening us. I don’t know if they can make good on the threat or not, but I want everyone in suits ten minutes ago just in case. Stand by for possible decompression, rapid acceleration, and God knows what else. This is not a drill, folks, so step on it.” I followed my own orders, grabbed my helmet and snapped it into place onto my shipsuit.

“They can’t really hurt us,” Wilson said, disbelief etched in his tone. “The Accord forbids weapons in space, and they can’t get close enough to ram us if we keep maneuvering.”

I wasn’t so sure. I watched the last seconds of the thirty they gave us tick away. The Lunar Accord forbade any ship to carry weapons in space, upon pain of mandatory death sentence. But I knew better than most people how fragile a thing the Accord was. My father argued long and hard against anyone signing it for just that reason.

The time was up. I held my breath, watching the scan.

“Multiple inbound objects!” said Andrew, almost shouting. “Coming from that ship!”

I watched the objects on my console. “Missiles,” I said. Part of me wanted to scream that this couldn’t be happening. But I knew it was, and that all our lives depended on what I did over the next few minutes. My fingers started flying over the keypad, plotting course changes.

“This can’t be happening...” Wilson said quietly, echoing my unspoken thoughts. I looked up at him. He was staring at his scan console, not moving. His eyes were wide, his mouth slack. The man was terrified. I could understand the feeling, but I couldn’t afford to have my pilot frozen right now.

“Wilson, I need you!” I said. He didn’t reply. Damn.

“Captain assuming pilot duties,” I said. “Andrew, I need you watching that ship and ready for anything else that comes up. Hang on.” I waited a few more seconds until the missiles seemed to be at full speed and almost on top of us. Then I tapped the ‘execute’ key, and the computer began putting into motion the course changes I had plotted. The ship lurched as small thrusters kicked the back end around, then bucked again as the main drive tripled in power, tossing us back into our seats at three gravities, then four.

The missiles hurtled past us, their speed too great to immediately turn and follow us. But they were turning, and faster than I’d hoped. Our cargo ship was too heavily loaded and sluggish to avoid them again. I dialed up the engines one more time, five gravities of acceleration driving us forward now, buying me a little more time to think. The missiles were still gaining, though.

“Options?” I gasped out around the pressure on my chest. I knew Andrew would be watching his scan as well. The other ship had fired a second volley of missiles, but we were pulling away from them. I wasn’t sure how long those missiles would burn, but the second group was far enough away we might outrun them. That first cluster of missiles was the immediate threat.

“Cargo,” Andrew said, struggling against the acceleration as much as I was. “Chaff.”

I knew what he meant. Our cargo was stored in two rings of wedge shaped compartments, docked to the outer hull. I could unlatch the wedges from my console, blow the cargo away from the ship. It might confuse the missiles to suddenly have nine targets instead of one. Worth a shot, but I’d had to wait until they were almost on top of us. I watched the computer count down the seconds until collision. At five seconds, I keyed in the command to blow the explosive bolts holding the cargo pods to the ship.

The pressure on my chest seemed to double. Stars swam in my vision, blackness curling there on the edges. I blinked, tried to focus. The ship groaned as metal came under stress. Our acceleration meter was showing eight gravities! I’d done that much, briefly, in training. It sucked even more out in the real thing.

I cursed, then huffed hard to try to replace the lost air. I’d forgotten about the mass. Without having to push the huge mass of the cargo, the powerful engines driving the ship were pushing a lot less material a lot faster. But it was working! Behind us, the missiles slammed into one cargo container after another, turning the space behind us into a confused jumble of small pinwheeling objects. We were blasting hard on a course back toward Mars, and the other ship was now well behind us.

My eyes stayed on the scan as I fought to keep air moving in and out of my lungs, each breath painful. My vision narrowed as darkness crept in more. The dark halo around my vision made the screen in front of me seem like the entire world. And out of that field of debris leapt one icon, marking one missile that had missed the cargo shells and continued tracking its original target.

There was nothing I could do. I could barely move my hand, and at the velocity we’d already reached, any heading change I made would create too small an arc to make any difference. I gritted my teeth and watched that missile swoop in like a hawk.

I heard a bang, like a crash of metallic thunder. The ship bucked hard enough that I flew upward against my harness. Stars flashed in front of my eyes. All around me the ship growled with the grinding sound of metal under stress. Alarms sounded in the control room, signaling decompression. My screen showed that we’d lost pressure in the spine, the corridor which ran down the center of the ship. I hoped everyone had made it into suits in time.

That still left six more missiles. They were well behind us but slowly gaining ground. We were pushing forward at eight gravities, but we still needed more. I couldn’t even reach my console, and could barely breathe to talk.

“Computer,” I gasped. “Captain’s voice override.”

“Understood,” the computer replied. “Awaiting voice commands.”

I took as deep a breath as I could draw. Then I ordered course changes to shift our heading back home to Mars. The missile impact had taken us off course a bit. “Acceleration override. Push engines to fifteen gravities, maintain for ten minutes,” I stopped and huffed to get more air, “then reduce one gravity per minute down to one gravity.”

It was a risk. I’d never been under that much acceleration before. I knew that in theory, you weren’t likely to die until you were up over twenty or twenty five gravities. But most people would pass out somewhere between five and ten gravities of acceleration. Once I initiated this command, I wasn’t going to be able to turn it off – I’d black out for sure. We were just along for the ride and hoping for the best at that point.

I closed my eyes and prayed for the best. “Execute,” I said.

The computer piped back “Command acknowledged. Safety override authority acknowledged.” And the elephant on my chest doubled in weight. I couldn’t hang on any longer. The blackness around my vision collapsed inward, and I fell into it.

I came to slowly, coughing on air that tasted stale. I checked the clock on my console. I’d been out for just over forty minutes, and I hadn’t hooked the suit up to the ship’s air feed, which explained why what I was breathing was starting to go a little sour. Suit air would only last an hour or so. I reached down and hooked the tube next to my seat into the suit, and felt fresh air brush across my face. I took several deep, gulping breaths, then looked around. Andrew looked like he was starting to stir, but Wilson was still out. There were six other crew on board though. I touched a button on my screen. It looked like all of them had connected their oxygen – I was the only one who’d forgotten that critical step. But something was wrong with the air lines. Maybe the missile strike damaged something. The computer showed the other six crew all connected properly to the system down in the engine room – but they weren’t getting any air from it. And they only had about fifteen minutes left in their suits.

My hands tapped across my console. I had to see what had happened with those missiles and the attacking ship! I ached all over. Every muscle felt like it was on fire, and I had a splitting headache. But according to the computer, the extra speed had worked. Aside from the one hit, which was showing as a compartment open to space in the middle of the ship’s spine, we were clear. The ship had sealed the breached area, so most of the ship was still in pretty good shape. We had gone a good chunk of the distance back toward Mars, too and we were still moving fast – way too fast. I took the controls again and flipped us around, starting a gentle one gravity deceleration. We were still going to have to slow down faster somehow, either by cranking the engines up again or aerobraking in Mars’s atmosphere. Otherwise we’d shoot right past home instead of stopping there. I wasn’t sure how much more stress the ship could take, so I figured not pushing our luck just yet seemed like a good idea.

“Andrew, you OK?” I asked.

“Mmmmglllth,” came his reply. He was, awake but not really all there yet. The inside of my skull sympathized.

Now to let Mars know. They had probably already seen us coming. Our high energy burn would have lit us up on their tracking systems. But I doubted that they saw any of the attack, given how far away we were. That made our computer’s readings of the hostile ship, the missiles, and the whole event critically important. That data needed to get to Mars Station and from there to Earth. Nothing was more vital that that, not even the lives of those crewmen running out of air in the back.

I made a fast copy of the ship’s log database. Then I packed it all into a radio signal and sent it out toward Mars for pickup on one of the company satellites. I’d radio to give my full report – later. Looking at the time, I only had about ten minutes left before my crew ran out of air. I cut our thrust. I’d be able to move faster in zero gee.

“Andrew, see if you can wake Wilson up. You’re in charge until I get back,” I said.

Then I popped my seat restraints and pulled the air lead free. The hose had recharged most of my suit air, so I was good for a while. Without the cargo wedges, the ship looked something like a barbell. The bridge and crew area was at one end, the engines at the other, with a spindle corridor connecting the two main areas.

Shimmying out the hatch from the bridge, I pulled myself hand over hand into the corridor beyond. The passage was clear for good long way, then stopped at a sealed door. I pushed off and glided down the center of the corridor and flipped around before I hit the door. I tucked my knees to absorb the impact. It almost worked, but I hadn’t quite gotten my space legs back yet. I bounced a bit and had to grab a rail to catch myself. Frustrated, I swore a little under my breath and pulled myself down to peer through the door’s porthole. Everything looked clear on the other side, just another long stretch of white corridor, with another door on the far end, and a ladder down the side for use during acceleration. The warning light was not lit – good pressure on the other side. I punched the key code to unlock the door and it opened smoothly. With a shove, I was moving fast down the tube again. I checked my watch. Eight minutes.

The next door showed a decompression alarm, strobes flashing red against the alabaster corridor. I peeked through the window and saw – disaster. The main lights were out in the corridor, but emergency lights gave me a dim view of torn metal and twisted plastic. It looked like the missile had torn through the hull on one side of the corridor and then continued on it way, punching through the other side. I’d seen hits like that from large rocks before. They’d punch through the hull so fast that they’d create a shock wave once they hit air, and then suck everything out the other side with them.

The missile had been designed to kill the crew, not destroy the ship.

But the wreckage was cutting me off from my crew in the engine room. I saw bits of light glint off bright points floating in the air, shards of the ship now in free fall, and twisted columns of steel where it had ripped apart under the stress of impact. My shipsuit was thin, made for light duty inside of a ship. If I contacted one of those shards too fast, my suit would rupture and depressurize. People don’t last too long in a vacuum.

I looked at the time again. Only six minutes. I tapped my radio and tried reaching the control room. “Andrew?”

“Here,” he said. “Mars has radioed us. I gave them the short form and said you’d get back to them with the details.”

“Sounds good. Any contact from the aft sections?”

“No. Not yet. You OK?”

“Fine. That one missile hit really messed up the corridor where it hit, though. Don’t know if I can make it through, it’s all shredded steel in there.” I had another idea though.

“Don’t try if it’s too risky,” he replied. “Stay put and I’ll break out one of the heavy suits from the lockers.”

I pushed off toward a hatch that was ‘up’ from me on a wall of the corridor. I keyed the access numbers and the hatch slid open, letting me inside.

“Thomas, just saw an airlock reading in your section. What’re you doing?” said Andrew.

“Something a little crazy,” I replied, setting the airlock to cycle its atmosphere out. I couldn’t get through, but what about around? “Those heavy suits take too long to get into. By the time we got one of us suited, anyone back there who needs help, won’t anymore.” Of course, shipsuits were not designed to take prolonged exposure to space, either. They were supposed to keep one alive through a micrometeor hit long enough to get a patch in place.

“Thomas, I don’t know...” Andrew started to say.

I cut him off. “Andy, I need to concentrate right now. I’ll radio you when I get back in.”

I’d have to crawl along the outside of the ship all the way down to the engines where there was another airlock door. It was going to be a long hike. I hadn’t even had a chance to recertify in EVA yet – my last solo spacewalk was about six years ago. I grinned, wondering if this stunt would be accepted as my recert test. The door beeped and flashed green – the air had cycled out. I punched the keys to open the outer door and pulled myself out into space. So far, so good. Wasn’t too cold, pressure in the suit was holding well. Now to drag myself hand over hand down a hundred more feet of ship to the next airlock. I got to work, climbing along the ladder, one rung at a time.

And that was were I realized I was going to have a problem. Space is...space. It’s empty. Emptiness is a pretty good insulator, so while it was nearly absolute zero, my suit wasn’t losing heat rapidly. Objects conduct heat just fine though – so the rungs of steel on the outside of the ship wicked the heat out of my hands every time I touched them. By the time I was a third of the way down the ship, I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore. The shipsuit just wasn’t designed to protect against this level of heat loss. My teeth started chattering as my body reacted to my freezing hands. If I lost much more sensation, I wouldn’t be able to hang on to the rungs anymore. One slip, and I’d be tumbling out in space.

I looked at my watch. Only two minutes left before my crew would be hitting critical levels on their air. I had to do something fast. I was past the wreckage already, nothing ahead of me but a long string of ladder rungs running along the ship through a gap in the crew compartments. They went all the way to the other airlock, down by the engines. After the airlock, the engine area grew out from the spine in a huge bulge. Only one way to do this.

I reached out for the next rung, but instead of grabbing it, I made a blade of my hand and slapped the far side, pushing myself forward. Using my hands like paddles, I swung down and slapped each rung in turn as I moved forward. I was touching the ship for just an instant with each slap, so my hands were starting to warm back up. But I was also picking up speed as I went. I started having to skip rungs. I was moving too fast to slap each one.

Much too fast. I tried to grab a rung to slow myself down but slipped, and the reaction spun my body around. I almost started a full spin but managed to stop the rotation with another slap. Now I was falling feet first toward the engine block. I worried about going too fast. If I bounced off the engines and drifted off into space, Andrew might be able to rescue me – but the crew in the engine room would be dead. I started tapping each rung with my fingers as I passed, dumping a little speed with each one. I was still moving at a good clip as I came up on the airlock.

I gritted my teeth, tensed my shoulder, and shoved my arm down, toward the ship, into the rungs. My armpit slammed into the rung, stopping my fall cold. Pain shot out through my arm and shoulder. But I wasn’t falling anymore. And the airlock was right there below me. Gritting my teeth, I withdrew my arm. Nothing seemed broken, but moving it hurt. I pulled myself down toward the airlock and let myself in.

“I’m inside, Andrew,” I said over the radio.

The rest of the rescue was pretty simple. The engine room had never lost atmosphere, so I just walked over and took helmets off the crew. Shortly afterward, they started waking up. We still lost one man though, a rookie whose seat had torn from its housing when the missile hit and ended up face down under the seat during the worst of the acceleration.

I spent a few long moments memorizing the kid’s face. He was maybe eighteen. Still had freckles, and bright red hair. His lips were blue, his face pale. I tried to remember if it was his first flight out of Mars or his second, but I couldn’t recall. My order made it his last flight, though. I wondered if his chair would have broken loose, had I stepped up the acceleration a little slower. Maybe he would have lived. Or maybe the missiles would have caught us and we all would have died. Either way, I’d never know. I’d just have to live with the memory of his face staring up at me without seeing.

Once everyone was awake and helping each other out, I headed back to the control room. This time, I busted out a hard suit and went the direct way through the tangled mess of the corridor. Mars would be wanting to speak with me by now. An armed ship in space? No one had dared to arm ships since the last war. This changed everything.

“Welcome back, Space Ace,” Andrew said as I pushed back into the control room after ditching the hard suit in the corridor outside.

“Space Ace?” I asked.

“Yeah, figured you were angling for a starring role in a movie or something with the antics on the hull there.”

“Oh.” I sat down. “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” It had taken about ten minutes for me to get full feeling back in my hands, and they still hurt.

“And it worked,” I added. Mostly, anyway. The dead rookie’s face haunted my vision.

He just shook his head. “Mars Station wants you on the line.”

“I’ll call them in a minute. What’s our ETA at the station?”

“Just under two hours,” Andrew said.

I whistled. “So little? I thought we’d be out there another day slowing down and then coming back.”

“Got a good plot laid in,” Wilson said. He was awake now, alert, and seemed only a little the worse for wear. “I’ve calculated the angle to use Mars’s gravity to brake us a bit, carved a ton of time off by not zooming out past the planet. We’ll curve around instead,” he said. He looked down and frowned. “Sorry about falling apart back there.”

“Wilson, I don’t think any of us were ready to have our ship shot at. Don’t worry about it. You did good, getting us in to the station so quickly,” I said.

He nodded his thanks and turned back to his console.

And I turned back to mine. Time for a chat with the station. I sent the call, and was rewarded a moment later with the face of a traffic control attendant. She glared at me for a moment, all frizzled gray hair and wide glasses. “Thomas Stein. Back in space not two days and in trouble already. Worse’n your father.”

“Hi Tabby,” I said, trying not to grin. Rumor was Tabby was present when Mars Station was first commissioned, and had been working there in one capacity or another ever since. She wasn’t an employee – she was an institution. And an old friend of my father’s. “Dad hear about it yet?”

“Your father? You’re kidding, right? He’s on his way up from the planet right now, should arrive just before you do. He wants to see you. The governor is up here to see you, too. Going to be a busy day. And you folks are playing hell with my traffic patterns.”

“Sorry about that, Tabby. Wasn’t my plan for the day, either,” I replied. “You already have the initial data squirt, but I have an update. We lost Sam Higgins during the attack.”

“Damn,” she said. “New kid, right?” She seemed to know just about everyone in space. Never asked her how she kept everyone straight. It was part of being a Force of Nature, I guess.

“Yeah. Can you get things rolling for a family notification? We won’t be able to keep wraps on it long, and his folks should hear about it from the company before the press catches word.”

“Yup, done. You just get that bucket back here in one piece. Your father will kill you if your ship breaks up this close to the Station. Come to think of it, I’ll be after you too.”

I nodded. “Thanks. Motivation is just what I needed. We’ll be in soon.” Then I cut the connection and sat down to review the data on the attack, trying to sort out the details of what had happened as we started getting heavier again to slow down.

Chapter 2

Thomas

My father was waiting for me as I stepped out of the airlock into the station a couple of hours later. I’d barely had a chance to wash my face – we’d been too busy keeping the damaged ship running on the way in. He looked as impeccable as usual in a black company shipsuit. His wore his salt and pepper hair – more salt than it once had – close cropped as usual. His face had a scowl so dark that it made me feel like a six year old about to be scolded.

“You’re looking even more grim than usual,” I said. “Been waiting long?”

“Long enough,” he replied. He started walking and I had to step out a bit to keep up.

I don’t remember a time when Dad didn’t have a shadow there, behind his eyes. Oh, you might not have spotted it if you didn’t know what to look for, but I could see it. As a kid I never really understood why he was so distant, always away from the colony on business trips, always off “getting things done”. Other kids had Dads who were away from home too, but it seemed like mine was always gone longer, traveling farther. And even when he was home, it was often like he wasn’t there.

That shadow was something I first remember seeing when I was seven, and just starting to understand people a bit. I saw Dad sitting at his desk. He had returned that day from a long trip. It was late, and I was supposed to be in bed. I don’t think he ever saw that his sandy-haired son was sitting there in the doorway, watching him. He was looking over some data chips on a computer tablet, and there was something about his eyes... I still remember it today.

As he stalked through the corridor of a space station in chaos, the shadow was very much in evidence.

Floating in geosynchronous orbit above Olympus City, Mars Station served as a lifeline to ferry goods from Earth into Mars’s largest settlement, and to ship out the tons of uranium Earth needed to continue supplying energy to the twelve billion souls still living there. It was part port, part political networking center, with bits of whatever else was needed at the time thrown in.

Now it was being used as a military crisis center, the first in over thirty years. The ‘Old Man’s’ rolling gait carried him down the main hall toward the control center, which was the hub of the station and the nerve center of Mars operations. I struggled to match his pace. That’s what a lot of folks called Dad – the ‘Old Man’. Or in some parts, they still called him Admiral Nicholas Stein, USN. Less politely, you’d still hear a few people whisper the name ‘the Mad Bomber’, the title media attack dogs gave him for being the only human still alive to authorize the use of nuclear weapons. I had been in more than one fistfight over that sort of whisper while I was attending university on Earth these past years.

I called him Dad, and had such a complex web of emotions about the man that I could hardly begin to unravel them, even on the best of days. Today was not one of those.

He didn’t pause as he hit the doors to the command center, ignoring a guard holding up a hand in a vain attempt to stall him. I flashed a sympathetic grin to the guardsman as I followed Dad in. I’d learned to manage my father, but most people didn’t have the advantage of being a blood relative. I knew that he wasn’t going to have me jettisoned out the nearest airlock, like the look he was giving the guard said he had in mind. Angry bears would take a look at his face and head off in the other direction. One portly guardsman with too many stress lines on his face didn’t stand a chance.

The control room was like a round cave, computer display screens sparkling along the walls like crystals growing from some enormous geode. The effect was pretty stunning, even though I’d seen it before. There seemed to be a lot more people around than usual, but that didn’t shock me under the circumstances. Mostly, this room served as traffic control for the ships docking and undocking from the station. Not today. A huge table had been placed dead center in the room. It was lit up with holo displays showing telemetry data that was getting more familiar each time I saw it – they were analyzing the attack on my ship. The people gathered around the table looked like a who’s who of Mars muckety-mucks. Dad headed straight for the table, of course.

One of the men looked up and laughed aloud when he saw Dad coming. Not the usual reaction, but then, Governor Clarke wasn’t a usual sort of man. “Nick. Might have known you’d fly up here soon as you heard. News travels fast.”

“Especially when it’s bad” replied my father. Then he added, “It seemed like my expertise might be of some use to us here, Governor.”

“And it was your son being shot at, I understand. But if you keep calling me governor, I’m going to start calling you admiral,” he added.

“All right...George,” Dad replied slowly. Then he spread his arms wide. “So, what do we know at this point, gentlemen?” he said, putting on what I called his Admiral Voice.

“I’ll ignore that technically, as a civilian you shouldn’t be in here at all,” the governor started off, “and admit that another set of eyes might be just what we need. Apart from Thomas’s ship being attacked, we’ve got another three transit ships that are late for arrival in the mining centers of the asteroids here,” he said, pointing at a spot in the holomap over the table.

“We don’t know that those ships are in trouble. They could just be running behind,” said another face at the table. That was Colonel Turrell, who ran the detachment of UN troops assigned to the station and surface of Mars. They were more a glorified police unit than an actual combat force, but they were the closest thing Mars had to a military. Dad fired him a scathing look, which he tried to meet. He withered a little instead. They were not friends. I tried hard not to grin, not being terribly fond of the good Colonel myself.

“Yes, well,” Clarke stepped back in to forestall a fight, at least for the moment. “I think we can assume that one ship being attacked and three others missing in a short period is a bad sign.”

Tabby looked up from where she was sitting at the corner of the table, bent over a tablet computer and working away. “I’ve already recalled all ships heading in that direction,” she said.

“Good,” said Clarke. “We need to figure out what we’re up against here, though. Ships firing on ships! It’s a nightmare, like something out of the Lunar War.” He stopped, looked at Dad. Heck, we all looked at Dad. Maybe I was the only one present who could see the shadows behind his eyes get a bit deeper. But maybe not, because the governor coughed and hurried on. “So some ship is out there firing on our vessels, and from the radio traffic Thomas received, probably trying to seize them.”

Dad had to have been studying the records I sent of the attack since they arrived, but he stared at the holo in front of him, watching the attack repeat itself there again. I looked too, shuddering a little as I vividly remembered those horrible moments when I was fairly sure we were all going to die.

“Well, they’re using powered missiles, obviously,” Dad said. “And from the damage to the ship, it looks like they’re non-explosive. Some sort of SABOT round, designed to punch right through the hull – in one side and out the other.” He had one hand on his chin, with an index finger tapping his nose in thought.

“The SABOT would take all the atmosphere out with it, along with any crew or loose objects in the compartments it hit. High kinetic energy impact,” I explained, when Clarke looked puzzled. “Great for taking out crew without blowing up the ship. The missile drives a pressure wave in front of it and then yanks everything not nailed down after it with the counterpressure.” That was almost me, squeezed into paste by a pressure wave. If that missile had hit a bit more forward... Sweat broke out on my brow.

Everyone was silent for a moment until Dad broke in again. “How many ships do we think they’re operating with?”

“We’ve just seen the one,” I said. “So far, anyway.”

“Isn’t one enough?” Turrell retorted. “One is all we have seen. And getting one ship armed would be hard enough. Let’s not make this more than it is.”

Dad surprised me by chuckling. “Just because the Lunar Accord hasn’t been broken before, don’t assume it’s hard to break. Adding basic arms to a spacecraft is pretty elementary in any well equipped workshop. As I’ve pointed out at length in the past.”

Turrell sputtered some more. “The UN has been enforcing...”

Dad cut him off in full Admiral Voice again. “Yes, and so very effectively, I see. No, it’s pretty certain they have more than one ship. Notice how spread out the fight paths of the missing ships are? I think there has to be at least two armed ships out there, maybe more. If you have the facility to arm one ship, arming a few more is not that hard.”

Clarke scratched his chin. “So, you think we have multiple armed pirates out there, somewhere. What’s their next move? They know we can’t just let them do this with impunity.”

“Well, there’s the problem,” I broke in. Couldn’t believe I was about to do this – Dad’s ongoing diatribes about the mess that was coming when someone broke the Accords had been a source of family strife for as far back as I could remember. Mom had left over it. He and I had fought long and loud over the topic. But it looked like he was right. “It’ll take a while to give ships even a basic refit for combat. The estimates have been...” I looked at Dad.

“Six months, per ship,” he said. “Faster if you cut corners or add a lot to the expense. Using all of Earth and Mars Station’s berths, we could have a dozen armed merchant ships out there in three or four months if enough money was put behind it. But that would mean no major repairs to any of our other ships if they broke down. And even then, we don’t know if the pirates are using retrofitted merchant ships or custom built warships. If those ships are built for fighting, they could tear our retrofits to shreds.”

“One year, maybe more, to get a true warship designed, built, and ready for action. I don’t think they plan to give us that long,” he finished.

I ran some numbers in my head and could see others at the table doing the same. Tabby beat us all, though. “Even in six months, we’re looking at some major issues if they can interdict traffic,” she said. “The mining stations rely on Earth and Mars for oxygen and food. They can’t last six months.”

And if they were forced to surrender, all that metal would go to the pirates to potentially build even more ships. There were two large berths out there in the fields that could build a new ship from scratch.

“Mars could get by for six months,” Clarke mused, “although we’d be tired of rationing by then. Earth though? They rely on our uranium for power. If trade is stopped for too long, there will be a lot of cold people sitting in the dark on Earth.”

“This isn’t an issue,” said Turrell. “The UN Spaceforce is quite capable of...”

“Sitting in orbit and getting blown to bits,” said my father.

“We have two armed ships of our own, based at Earth!” Turrell said. His face was turning crimson.

“Armed with nothing but some pea-shooters designed to look threatening to a shuttle, maybe,” Dad shot back. “They have nothing that can stop these ships. They’d be destroyed before they were even in range to shoot. I warned your bosses what would happen if they didn’t build a real navy, and here we are.”

Turrell was furious, but there wasn’t much he could say. The state of the Spaceforce ‘fleet’ was not common knowledge, but I’d heard enough about it from Dad. The UN had been forced to agree on building ships to enforce the Lunar Accords, but they ‘hadn’t seen the need’ to do a very good job of it. So the entire Spaceforce was two tiny ships, each armed with a short range cannon and a grappling gun.

The table was a zone of quiet in the otherwise buzzing room as everyone pondered the situation. It was Dad who broke the silence again. What he said came as a surprise to me. “Well, I don’t see that there’s a lot we can do about it right now. I assume Earth has already been informed?”

Clarke nodded. “Of course,” he said.

Dad sighed. “Then it looks like the ball really is in the pirates’ court for now. I don’t see that there’s much else that we can do until we know their next move, other than batten down the hatches and bring our ships in toward the planet.” Both Clarke and I were looking quizzically at Dad now. He wasn’t known for taking a passive stance on, well, anything!

“Oh!” he went on. “I’m going to grab the company courier ship for a quick run to our R&D station. Governor, can I get rapid clearance for undocking? We have research out there that we can’t afford to let these people get their hands on.”

“By all means, go then!” Clarke started, then added, “What sort of things? I don’t want to pry into company secrets, but if you have any ideas that might help...”

“Well, among other things, our people have been working on a tweak for a faster ion drive,” Dad said. His face was poker-smooth, which meant he was telling the truth...just not all of it. I was instantly curious.

Clarke stared at Dad a moment longer. For a second I thought he was going to ask more questions, but I guess he thought better of it. I didn’t plan to be as quiet about my own curiosity.

“I’ll make sure your ship is cleared as soon as you’re ready to go,” Clarke said, and smiled. “Just be careful out there. Mars needs you right now, maybe more than ever.”

Dad took that as a dismissal. He nodded to Clarke and Tabby, ignoring Turrell completely – who scowled in return – and turned on his heel to head to the door. With a smile and a wave, I followed right behind him. Something was up, and I intended to find out what.

Chapter 3

Thomas

I hurried to keep up as he marched out of the control room. He wasn’t running, but he always set a fast pace when he walked. Dad ignored me as we moved down the halls away from the station hub, headed out toward the docking sections. He pulled out his phone and made a call.

“Is the courier ready to undock?” he asked. “I’m going to need a fast flight.” Whatever he heard must have satisfied him. He nodded. “No worries, not bringing crew. They wouldn’t have clearance to go where I’m headed anyway.” Then he hung up on the call.

“Dad, stop.” He did, and turned to look at me. I raised my eyebrows. “You know the station has a two pilot rule – no ships fly out of orbit without a second person on board.”

He started walking again. “The governor just said he’d expedite. They won’t hold me up.”

I caught up, came up alongside him. “They will if I inform them you’re taking off by yourself in a ship meant to be crewed by ten.” At that, he froze in his tracks and turned to glare at me. I took a deep breath and met his stare evenly. I had his attention, at least.

“You need a copilot. I’m here, I’m flight and command certified for interplanetary class ships. And I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t want to be stuck with just anyone.”

“You should head to the surface, get down in the corporate building. The bottom levels should make a pretty good bunker,” he said. “This is going to get messy, and fast.”

“So you’re pretty sure they’re going to hit Mars Station, then.” It wasn’t a question.

“It’s their next logical target,” he replied. “Once they have control of the mining bases and Mars, they have Earth in a bad place.”

I looked at Dad. I could see he didn’t want me anywhere but safe in a hole. I could even understand why. But maybe I had inherited more from him than I usually wanted to admit. I could feel that this was the cusp of something important. I knew damned well that my father was about to go and do something drastic to help solve the problem. And...

I had friends on Mars. And there were thousands of other people there who relied on the station, and contact with Earth. Like the governor said, life without contact would be hard for the people on Mars. Very hard. More, there was a part of me that was burning in anger at the people who had attacked my ship. I couldn’t help thinking about the kid who died. I wondered how long it would be before his memory stopped haunting me. Those people killed one of my crew. And they’d put the lives of everyone on Earth and Mars at risk.

“I want in, Dad. I don’t know what you’re headed off to do, but these people attacked me. The people on this station are my friends too. If you’ve got something in mind to stop these people, I want to be part of it.”

He stared at me for a long moment. I thought I saw the shadow recede a bit, but that might have been my imagination. “OK,” he said simply. “You’ve earned the right to be in on this. But once we get in that ship, there’s no turning back. And you might not like where we’re going.”

“I think I’ll manage,” I said grimly. We walked together out onto the docks. For some reason, I felt closer to the Old Man than I had in years.

The trip took us out about two light minutes from Mars – not a short hop. Took more than a few hours, during which the conversation was just about non-existent. I had tried to quiz Dad about where we were going, what he had in mind, and why the total secrecy, but he brushed off my questions and attempts to draw him into chatter.

“It’ll be easier to show you than explain to you,” he all he would say.

Finally I gave up, let him peck intently at his tablet while I stared at the flight controls, trying to keep my mind busy without worrying about what the pirates were up to or where they’d pop up next.

I wasn’t too worried about running into them, mind you. We were well off the beaten path of the major shipping lanes, and as I said before, space is a really, really big place. No, I was more worried that we’d get a sudden alert from corporate headquarters on Mars that the station was under attack. Dad asked me to order all company personnel on Mars Station groundside, which was an unusual bit of delegation for him. That kept me busy for all of twenty minutes while he piloted us away from the station and set our course. Most of our folks went, but we had a few die hards who had volunteered to stay and keep things running. I hoped they’d be OK.

Meanwhile, word had gotten out, and the situation in Olympus City was getting pretty wild, or so I gathered from the radio. People were panicking, and a few fights had already broken out. Once the radio confirmed that the story had been leaked, I figured we were a little more free to help our people out. I ran the idea by Dad, who nodded, then I passed the word that all employees and their families were to be housed in the company base if they wanted a safe spot to stay. We had the room, with a little work and a lot of cot setup. And if the bottom of the base was safe enough for Dad to want to plunk me there, it was probably one of the safest spots on Mars right now.

Instead of being tucked away, I was out flying God knew where on Dad’s ‘secret mission’. I was starting to regret my earlier curiosity. No conversation, no idea where we were going, and I wasn’t in the mood to lose any more chess games today. Bored, I pulled up the station’s data on the missing ships. Two of them were ours, which stood to reason. We had more ships flying to and from Mars than any other company. When I got to the rosters of missing personnel, I froze. I sucked in my breath, hard.

Keladry Flynn.

I scanned the rest of the info absently, half in a daze. She was listed as pilot on one of the missing ships. On their way back from a long survey mission to the outer planets. Lost on approach a day out from Mars, overdue. No communication.

I couldn’t concentrate on the data, couldn’t focus. My mind was playing back memories of a young woman with auburn curls helping me load cargo and almost dropping a crate on my foot. Of her smile on a shared watch. The scent of her as we tumbled together in free-fall, nothing between sweat-slick bodies.

It wasn’t unusual for crew of interplanetary ships to pair off. And we were both teenagers, out doing our apprentice cruises. The lure of zero-gee sex was enough to tempt anyone to experiment, so in general there was no rules against it so long as the job got done and no one got hurt. Kel and I shipped out together several times and got very close. Maybe too close. We were starting to talk about becoming partners officially – which would guarantee we’d ship together every time. We were full of daydreams about shipping out to every human station in the solar system together, hitting them all one by one.

But Dad found out and pitched a fit. I was yanked off flight status and given a choice: go to Earth for college and grad school without contacting Kel again, or she lost her job.

I wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye.

That was six years ago. I had kept my promise to never contact Kel again, and I knew in my bones that so long as I did, Dad would keep his end of the deal. He was infuriating, but he never broke his word.

It had taken me two years to stop dreaming about her at night.

And now she was ‘lost’. Maybe dead, maybe taken. The bottom of my stomach felt like it had dropped away, and just kept falling.

I realized my hands were shaking, and Dad was watching at me. Gauging my reaction. He nodded.

“I saw the list, too. I didn’t tell you. Wasn’t sure how you’d handle it.”

“And?” I said through gritted teeth.

“Still not sure. Christ, Thomas. You spent six years at Harvard and never even found anyone to date there, not even once.” I wasn’t shocked he’d been monitoring my personal life, but it raised my anger another notch. “You were still mooning over that girl. Still are, from the looks of you.”

“Why the hell do you care?” I asked.

“There’s too much at stake here, Thom. I could use you, but only if you have a level head. I’m not sure that you do.” He looked away.

I started to reply, but six telltale warnings all went off at once. I put thoughts of Kel away – for now.

“Dad...”

“I see it,” he said. He started punching numbers into the console.

“We’re being pinged,” I said. “Radar, lasers, god knows what else. Is this your reception committee, I hope?”

“Yes,” he said simply. He punched another couple of keys, I saw he was transmitting something. Then the alarms all went dead at once. Whatever sensors had been giving us the once-over had stopped.

“Give me flight control,” he said.

I took my hands off the console. Now I could see the source of the pings – a mass of girders, hab modules, and solar panels off there in the distance. We were slowing down steadily but still closing fast. A free floating station, out in space, nowhere near any planet. This had to be the Special Projects site.

It was hard to describe the base. The whole thing was painted a matte black, so it didn’t reflect light well and thus didn’t stand out much from the darkness around it. The radar was barely picking up anything at all, even as we drew close. It wasn’t until we were under a kilometer away that I realized what I was seeing. It was a dry-dock – a ship manufacturing station. And it looked to me like there were two ships in the berths.

I looked at Dad without saying a word, but he must have felt my questions burning. He changed the radio frequency and said, “Hit the floods as I fly by, eh? I want to see how we’re doing.” A second or two later, floodlights splashed onto the two ships in the bays, and I got my first good look.

The first was a ship I’d seen before, tons of times. It was our standard hauler class freight ship; we’d had that class in service for ten years now. It was basically the same ship I’d commanded when the pirates attacked. There was something odd about this one though. The cargo area didn’t look right. I dialed up the resolution, zoomed in, and saw there were some attachments here and there that changed the ship’s profile slightly. Something Dad had been tinkering with, no doubt.

The engines were huge – easily twice the size of the standard ion drives that class should have. So that ship could hit some serious acceleration – probably more than a crew could survive for long. Could hit, if the drives were functional. I could see that they were either still being installed, or were being overhauled. Hard to tell which, but a lot of plating and some of the innards were missing, and I could see a suited crew out there working away, torches blazing.

The “spine” of the ship looked normal – a single conduit running from the engines to the command capsule in the bow. Wide enough to pass a few people, or a large chunk of cargo or engine part down. The spine had some exterior mods, though. Normally, there would be two rings of couplers on the spine, four couplers per ring, each supporting one large cargo container. Those containers could be disengaged from the bridge or manually from inside the spine, which made it easier to pick up and drop off cargo. Instead, this ship had disks where the cargo containers should have been. Each disk was pretty big, a hundred meters in diameter or so. They intersected the spine perpendicularly, so a gentle spin around the spine’s axis would create an artificial gravity there. They looked a bit like the units used to transport cattle, horses, or other large livestock that didn’t do well in zero gravity. There were some odd round ports on them, but my eyes were drawn instead to the teardrop shaped command and quarters area at the bow.

The command capsule looked perfectly normal – except for a pair of what could only be turrets mounted above and below. Two barrels per turret of some sort of large bore, high velocity weapon.

Weapons. In space. I looked at Dad. He was studiously ignoring me, which meant of course that he was carefully watching my reaction. I knew I had to have paled once I saw those guns. This ship was modified for combat, which meant those round hatches on the disks were probably some other sort of weaponry.

Then the other hangar came into view. It housed a ship the likes of which I’d never seen before. This had to be a totally new class. Rather than the engine, spine, command unit design common to most freight ships, this craft was built more like a hammerhead shark. The bow area was large, and wider than the bulk of the ship, with a flattened top and bottom, but rounded outer edges. The frame wasn’t a skinny rail like the first ship. It was perhaps a hundred meters across and half that in height. Round ports stuck out like sore thumbs in regular intervals down the side I could see. The engines were larger than the midships as well, sitting huge and hulking in the rear.

This ship had the look of a predator. There didn’t seem to be any room for cargo. And if those round ports were some sort of weapon, like I had assumed with the first ship, then this one looked like it had over a dozen. I saw more of the small turrets like the ones mounted on the first ship, this time both fore and aft. It was hard to believe. Here was that ship ‘built for war from the keel up’ that Dad had been talking about a few hours before. Right before my eyes. But the ship sitting there was a death sentence for my father and everyone who had worked on it.

“They’ll execute you,” I said in a quiet voice. Of course he had done this. Why hadn’t I seen it before? It wasn’t in his nature to step aside when he believed something needed doing. No matter the personal cost. Or the cost to others around him.

He nodded. “That’s certainly possible, if the enemy doesn’t do the job first.”

“So you’re going after them. In that.” He nodded. “How long have you been planning this?” I asked.

“Really? Since they signed the damned Accord,” he replied.

“That long?”

I wasn’t even in school yet when the Lunar Accord was signed, but the history of the Accord and the war that led to its signing was a mandatory part of our education. When the Earth’s fossil fuels had begun to run out in the first half of the century, nuclear power had stepped in as the primary energy source – barely. Anti nuke protests slowed down the build up to an effective nuclear grid so much that the grid didn’t really come on line until after the oil crisis of 2035 was in full swing.

A lot of protests and a few small wars later, things settled down, and the small lunar colony became a key part of the Earth’s energy supply. People hadn’t even been sure there was uranium on the moon until 2009, but it turned out there was, and quite a lot of it. That first colony was wholly owned by a US corporation. A few other countries tried to get small operations started, but the strong base already in place at the colony plus the expense of setting up a new one resulted in a resurgence of the failing American hegemony.

In retrospect, of course, war over the moon was inevitable. Too much power – literally – in the hands of one nation. When it finally happened, things stayed on Earth for the first bit. Most spacefaring nations had a small official Navy in space, but it was pretty toothless. So the fighting stayed in the atmosphere. Until it didn’t. The APAC Alliance headed by China was losing the fight and decided to take the fighting back to the source. They loaded a set of nukes onto a ship and hit the lunar colony, which was more of a city by then. Over a hundred thousand people were either instantly vaporized or died in the decompression, explosions, and shock waves after the blasts. Then they took the remaining nukes and got ready to launch them at the United States.

One US Navy captain was in space when this all happened, and his ship was near enough to watch as friends and some of his family were obliterated on Luna. He managed to disable the engines of the Chinese ship, personally board it and seize the vessel. Then he refit the engines enough to get back to Earth. He programmed the ship’s computer to go back home, broadcasting a faked message about damage taken during the attack.

He sent it back and remotely detonated all the remaining missiles above one of the largest spaceports on Earth, a few miles outside Beijing. While missile defense systems would have stopped most of the damage from any nuclear missile launch, there was no defense against a ship they thought was their own. The damage was incalculable.

That pretty much ended the war in one shot. No one had the stomach for more destruction after that, and the loss of the Lunar Colony threatened everyone’s energy supply. No energy, no heat, no transport, no modern farming techniques – with a net result of mass starvation. It almost reached that point, but collectively the governments of the Earth got together and built a new mining colony again. And they all signed the Lunar Accord, an historic treaty.

The Treaty was signed by every nation on Earth – by force and threat of force, the major powers got everyone on board. It barred for all time any weapon capable of being used to damage any ship, station, colony, or planetary structure from space. No more armed spacecraft. No weapons platforms on satellites or space stations. No armaments at the new Lunar city, or on the colonies which would spring up on Mars or around the larger asteroids. No weapons in space – ever. The resources in space were too vital to ever risk losing them again to a military action. On pain of mandatory death sentence to all involved if anyone tried to violate the Accord. An international commission was created to ensure all space faring nations remained in compliance.

The officer who had basically ended the war single-handedly was billed as a hero. His side had won, so he was accorded a great deal of respect for someone who had blown up one of the largest cities on the planet. Big parades, promotion to admiral, and a nice desk job as far from possible action as they could dump someone of that rank. But he didn’t like the Lunar Accord. What was publicly hailed as a great step forward for the peace process, he saw as a disaster brewing. And he said so – loudly and publicly, using his new notoriety to get his message out. He advocated building a new international space force, designed to protect our facilities in space from attack and armed well enough to be able to do so. There were some powerful political figured who’d staked their careers on the success of the Accord though, so he made some powerful political enemies. They took the offensive, billed him as the ‘Mad Bomber’, turning his wartime actions into something darker. The press played along, and suddenly the war hero found himself on the news as a mass murderer and advocate of senseless killing.

That was my father, of course. He argued long enough for the UN to agree to fund a space force – the two toothless ships in orbit around Earth now. Then he retired from the Navy and used his own money and contacts he had made in the Navy to establish a business in space. His – our – family company founded the first human settlement on Mars after surveys he funded found that the planet had more fissionable materials than Earth and Luna together. His ships were among the first sent out to the asteroids to mine metals there for industry on Earth and Mars. And in time, Stein Space Industries became one of the more prosperous companies in the solar system.

“I told them this would happen,” he said. “Figured it wouldn’t take too long before someone would want to take advantage of all the power and wealth space represented, all with nothing out here to protect it.”

“How’d you get around the export protocols?” I asked. But I figured I already knew the answer. Most of the best shipbuilders in the solar system were living on Mars now, not Earth. And a good chunk of them worked for us.

“I wasn’t the only person who felt the way I did about the Accord,” he said as we jetted gently against the airlock. “Just the most vocal. When I resigned my commission in protest, a few other folks joined me. Others followed within the next year or two and helped form the nexus of the company.” He smiled. “Some of those folks are here on this station today.”

“A few stayed on Earth, and with their help I was able to acquire any materials that we couldn’t just manufacture outright on Mars. Mostly though, we just produced the ships ourselves.” He stood up – we’d picked up spin from the station so we had an up and down again – and headed for the hatch just aft of the control deck. I got up to follow him while he opened the hatch and yanked down the ladder stored there.

I was torn between feeling horrified and bemused. Dad had known precisely what he was talking about when he’d told Turrell how easy breaking the Accord would be, back on Mars Station. He’d managed all this – the station, the ships, everything – without the United Nations ever guessing what he was up to.

The station was set up as a wheel, with the aired sections in the ring around the outside edge and a huge solar array in the center. The hangars were sitting in the lee of the station, away from the Sun, and the station had a nice spin that gave it something which felt like gravity. Mars equivalent, I noticed, not Earth. Had to grin inwardly at that. Nobody who’d been on Mars for any length of time enjoyed being dumped back into Earth’s higher gravity much.

We marched down a long corridor, following the rim of the wheel. The place had a pretty spartan feel to it. No frills, just the essentials. It was clean and everything looked well maintained. I’d been around places where ex military hung out often enough to notice the signs.

I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the silence, so I asked, “What’s the plan then, Dad?”

He didn’t answer. We came up to a door. He pressed his palm against the door lock, which glowed a moment before opening the hatch. He gestured me through the doorway.

“Welcome to our Command Center,” he said.

Chapter 4

Thomas

The room was smaller than the command hub of Mars Station, which was my main basis for comparison. It seemed tighter but more active at the same time. It had a dome shape with a ring of consoles running around the entire outside except the doorway and a large monitor opposite. Looked like six stations in all, but none were in use. In the center of the room was a holotank, the same sort of three dimensional display system Mars Station had, and frightfully expensive. Right now it showed a plot of local space around Mars. Two men and a woman all looked up at us from the tank as we stepped in. I spotted at least one set of raised eyebrows when they saw me.

Glenn Chandler and Margaret Llyons went back to being busy at the plot. They were old crew from some of the company’s earliest shipping runs. Dad had yanked them from the line for his special projects division years ago. Now I knew why.

“Dunno that this is the best time for tours, Nick,” said the third man. That was Master Chief Matthew Acres, USN, retired, keeper of the raised eyebrows. One of Dad’s old Navy friends, and another founding member of the company. The guy had to be as old as the moon and twice as crusty, and he had a quiet but forceful Texas drawl that had sent shivers down the spine of new company spacers for decades. I knew from experience. He worked engineering and basically ran most of the ship when I did my own apprentice voyage.

Now? Yeah. The man was still scary. I stepped forward anyway and said, “Wouldn’t need a tour to find you, Chief. I’d just follow the bodies of the apprentices you’d frightened to death.”

He laughed a big, rolling belly laugh. “Well kid, you picked a hell of a time to come on board. But I guess the Old Man was pretty much always planning on bringing you in, sooner or later. He said you had the temperament.” I raised my eyebrows, looked at Dad. He ignored the banter, striding forward to check the holographic plot.

“Status,” he said coolly, that one word carrying enough weight to quiet all of us.

Glenn tapped a few keystrokes, and the projection switched to a view of the second ship I had seen, the warship. “ISS Defender is ready for action, sir. Full weapons load, and I’ve already ordered crew aboard. I thought it wise to be ready.” He looked at Dad, who nodded. “She can ship out as soon as is needed.” He looked at me, then continued for my benefit, “She has a compliment of thirty crew. There are four anti missile mounts, and sixteen missile tubes. She’s well stocked with sixteen hundred missiles – enough for over an hour of continuous fire. Also, six anti-missile missile tubes, linked to the same computer system as the guns to stop incoming shots.” He paused for a breath. “And the new drive is capable of a sustained twenty-five gravities, although I wouldn’t recommend holding that acceleration too long. The crew won’t handle it as well as the ship will.”

I didn’t know a lot about weapon mounts, but engines were another story. “Twenty-five Gs?” I said. “Sustained how long?” That was an incredible acceleration rate. I recalled my recent experience at being squashed under fifteen gravities. Twenty five was faster than even the best couriers we had.

“Forever, pretty much.” Glenn grinned now. “We’ve been busy out here. These engines function on the same principle as the standard ion engine, but they are a lot more powerful. We’ve got ablative seating and fluid-pressurized suits to help the crew handle that sort of accel, but even so, that’s the weak point. You’ll have people passing out if you hold that sort of boost too long. You should be able to go days at half that in a pinch, though.”

Days spent weighing four hundred kilos didn’t sound like much fun to me, no matter how good the seats and suits were. But I nodded – I could see the advantage. I did some quick math in my head. Boosting at that speed was about two hundred and fifty meters per second per second, which meant you could get to over three million kilometers per hour in about an hour of acceleration. That meant a jump from Mars to Earth would take a day or two tops, instead of weeks or months.

“And the drive is the main issue with the Indefatigable,” Margaret broke in. “Just mounting the new drive has been a less than stellar experience, but we’re nearly there. The problem is that she was never meant to handle those sorts of accelerations. I’ve been working on plans for reinforcing her structure, but at this point the danger is that her drives can give more acceleration than her structure can handle.”

She was talking directly to Dad now. “She’s just not going to hold together long under those stresses, Nick. I wish you would let me tear her down and rebuild those supports properly!”

Dad held her gaze a few moments, until her glare vanished and she looked down. “I know she’s your baby, Meg,” he said softly. “And if we had the time, I’d let your tear her down. But we’re up against an unknown number of enemy ships with unknown capabilities. If I’d known we were going to run into trouble just now, I’d never have authorized the new drive for the Indie at all.”

He tapped the console at the screen, and the Indefatigable’s profile popped up. “Right now,” he said, “the Indie mounts only two anti missile batteries and six tubes. Fully loaded, she has twelve hundred missiles. She’s also got a forward mounted railgun that can push out over a thousand rounds of high velocity charged slugs per minute.”

“Why no railguns on Defender?” I asked.

“We dropped them from the design,” he replied. “Our more recent tactical analysis has suggested that fighting will be a stand off affair of missile engagements, which is why we added more tubes and anti missile systems to Defender. The system was already built into Indefatigable though, and it’s tied into the ship’s structure enough that removal would be a real problem. We didn’t want Indie out of commission that long until Defender was proved spaceworthy.”

Dad looked back at Margaret. “How long until Indie can head into action? Minimum time.”

She bit her lip. “Bare essentials, just to get the engine install finished and some minimal structure reinforcement in place, a week. Maybe a bit less, if we push hard.”

“Push hard, Meg,” he replied. “I don’t think they’re going to give us a week.”

Dad’s arrival really stepped up the pace. He wanted the Defender out in space, preferably yesterday. The folks at the station hadn’t been slacking, even before we arrived on the scene. Dad had sent them the scoop before we left Mars, so they knew what was up. Before we arrived, Defender was pretty much ready to fire up her engines and go. Dad spent a couple of hours in his office working on...something... while the crew did last minute pre-flight and pre-combat checks on the ship.

Shortly before the ship was due to leave, my father called me into his office.

“Thomas,” he began, “Do you understand what is happening here today?”

“You’re flying off in an untested ship to fight off an unknown number of enemies whose location and base of operations you don’t even know?” I had stopped calling him “sir” about six years ago, and had no plans to start again now, even if everyone else on the station seemed to use the word like breathing.

He sighed and stood up from his desk. The room had a simple, almost spartan look typical of my father. A desk, a comfortable but plain chair behind it, and two identical chairs in front. A pair of bookcases, stacked with the paper books which had always been a soft spot of my father’s. He had always preferred paper books to tablet formats, and had a penchant for hunting down old history books from Earth.

There was a round window to the outside in the room as well. Windows like that were expensive. Obviously, another foible of my father’s, to have a window into the stars. He walked over to that porthole now and stared out, hands clasped in the small of his back. I waited.

“We are on a precipice of history, Thomas. What happens next will determine what happens to mankind for the next hundred years or more.”

He turned back to face me. “Clarke’s analysis was mostly right. What he missed is that right now Earth has no effective defense against space based attack. Missile defense, sure. But nothing to stop someone from dropping a small asteroid on a city, for instance. Or threatening to. Nothing that will defend Lunar City or the other moon bases. Nothing to protect the satellites and stations in orbit from attack.”

His eyes had a sharp intensity to them. “If the enemy chooses, they can do more than interdict trade. They can destroy every object mankind has in space, stop Earth and Mars from ever launching another spacecraft without their permission, and use threat of attack from space to force the planets to submit.”

“But Dad,” I said, “They’re just pirates. They’re doing some damage with these smash and grabs, but do you really think they plan on more than that?”

“They have to,” he replied grimly. “They have no choice. If they’re smart enough to have organized as well as we’ve seen, then they’re smart enough to know what Earth’s response would be. Oh, they could hurt Earth quite a lot by stopping shipping. But if they leave Earth’s orbital infrastructure alone and just raid commerce, it would only be a year or so before Earth had ships capable of going after them. And then there would be nowhere they could hide. No way to escape.”

He went on, the intensity in his voice going up to a ten. “They must win now by annihilating any chance of Earth or Mars building ships able to fight back, or they will die.”

I chewed on that thought for a moment. It would be much more comfortable to assume that the enemy was stupid, and just out for some easy profit. But multiple armed ships implied planning, careful planning. And deep pockets funding them. Which implied... That quite possibly, Dad was right.

“So what’s your plan to deal with them?” I asked.

“I’m going to take Defender to Mars. We’ll sit out there powered down so they can’t see us, and be ready to jump on any attackers. I think they’ll hit Mars Station soon, but I could be wrong. The other possible sites of interest are Earth and the three major repair and refit stations out in the asteroids. I’m leaving Chief Acres here to continue analysis of our data, and take Indefatigable out when she’s ready.”

I bit my lip, trying to rein in a sense of frustration and disappointment. I’d almost lost my first command not a day before, and in my gut I wanted another shot at these pirates. The Inde was a ship that would give them the shock of their lives, that much was sure. I checked my thoughts there. Indefatigable was a warship. Designed to kill people. Could I command a ship like that? My only ‘battle’ experience was spent running away as fast as my ship could fly.

Then I saw the faces of friends who had been on those lost ships, captured or dead. I thought of Mom, helpless on Earth against these pirates. If they wanted to blow away Michigan, they could do so and no one on Earth could stop them. But Dad could. These ships could. This mission could. Yes, when push came to shove, I thought I could fight. I thought of Kel, wondered if she was even still alive. I’d always hoped to see her again, and now...? The same hot anger I had felt before flared again. Yes, I was sure I could.

Dad must have seen something of my thoughts on my face, because he looked at me oddly a moment. “Thom, I don’t think I want you in on this,” he said.

I froze.

“I’d like you to stay here at the station. It’s well defended, and we need it as a nexus for re-arming and repair.”

“Dad, I -”

“No. I don’t want you in this. Even if we win, the UN will probably want my head. No sense handing them yours too.”

“That, and you’re still worried about Kel and I,” I added bitterly. I looked down. “Dad, I’m not seventeen anymore.”

“I want you safe, Thomas, not dead. That’s the end of it.”

“Right,” I said. I looked him in the eye, glaring. “You may not do it often, Dad. But you’re making a mistake right now.” I turned on my heel and left the office.

I didn’t see him again before Defender left the station, but I watched the ship as it picked up speed toward Mars. Silently, I wished my father luck. “Be careful, Dad,” I whispered.

The first day after Defender launched passed by at a crawl. We could still see the ship as my father captained her back toward Mars, but once he shut down his drives and went ballistic, they vanished from our scans. We only knew where they were because the computers extrapolated their position from their previous course.

In the meantime, most of the folks on the station had plenty to keep them busy. Aunt Meg, as I soon learned everyone here called Margaret, organized nearly everyone on the station into round the clock shifts to get the engine installation and refit done as rapidly as possible. I, however, sat in my cabin. I alternated between staring at the ceiling and going over all the data we had on the pirates. Over and over.

OK, I was sulking. I admit it. I wasn’t just peeved about being left here, I was furious. I had more experience dealing with combat in space than just about anyone alive, courtesy of my recent run in. The fact that one of the only folks on our side with more experience than me wanted me placed in bubblewrap for the duration because he thought I was a still teenager with overactive hormones had me about ready to climb the walls. So I locked myself into my cabin and stayed there. I sat there a long while before Meg buzzed my door.

“Come in,” I said, watching the replay of the attack on my computer console for the hundredth time.

“Thom, the Chief wants you in Control,” she said.

I didn’t look up. “What does he want?”

“Go. Ask. Him.” She was clearly pretty pissed. I sighed, then felt guilty when I looked up at her. Her eyes were sunken, dark from lack of sleep. Grease and dirt stained her face and clothes. Everyone else had been working their asses off. Maybe I could find something useful to do. This was too important to sit out. I wasn’t a little kid anymore.

A few minutes later I was walking into the control room, which seemed abuzz. We had techs at four consoles, and Chief Acres was standing at the holotank, hands on his hips and a dangerous smile on his face. I could almost see canary feathers sticking out of the corner of his mouth, he looked so smug. I wondered what was up.

“So, Thom, ready for a little pre-mission planning?” he asked. “If you’re going to be XO, I need you in on this from the beginning.”

“XO? Planning?” I stared at him blankly. What the hell was he talking about?

“Sure. Thought I was going to let you sulk in your room?” He swatted me upside the head, gently. “Get over yourself. There’s a war going on out there. I need you in it.”

I stood a little straighter. “That’s what I said. But Dad...”

“Fuck him. You let me deal with the Old Man,” Acres growled. “Sometimes he needs to have his priorities re-adjusted for him. Not the first time.”

I stared at him blankly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Be a-fucking-mazing, like your father was at your age,” Acres said. “Oh – and if you ever pull that sulk in your room teenager crap again, I will personally space you. Get me?”

“Scanning you clear,” I said, trying to hold back a smile. The Chief and I had always, always gotten along. He was a tough asshole, but he was an awesome guy to have in your corner.

He walked away, back to the holotank. “Now, let me brief you on what’s happening.”

“We have anything new?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “We’ve had two more attacks on ships that ignored the Mars Station warnings and tried to make the run out to the asteroid mining stations anyway. Damn fools, but the location of those attacks gave us a lot of information.”

He pointed at the scan. “We’ve lost contact with mining stations here and here,” he said. “And with the main repair and refit base here.” That was only three out of a dozen operations out there in the belt, and none of them were really close to each other. Contrary to what a lot of people think about a ‘belt’ of asteroids, the rocks out there aren’t really that close together most of the time. So the bases we mine from need to be mobile, either capable of being tugged by a big ship or built almost like slow moving ships in their own right. Those bases can then pop from rock to rock, mining the minerals as they traveled.

“So I fired off a probe at the repair station,” he continued. “Fast probe, but it still took time to get there. Just got telemetry back from it an hour ago. And there’s a lot more ships sitting at that station than there ought to be, especially since the station isn’t responding to communication from Mars or Earth.”

“How many?” I asked.

“Two on the station. One floating in space nearby. The two on the station are some of the captured ships, I think. Probably being fitted with weapons right now, but hopefully that’ll take the bastards a while. You should know, Thom, that the probe picked up some plasma trails leaving the area, too. Not sure how many, but a number of ships kicked out of there not too long before the probe sailed by.”

My mouth went dry. If those ships were headed for Mars, Dad was the only thing in their way. If he had guessed wrong and they headed to Earth, there was nothing to stop them at all. “What’s your take? We head to Earth to guard there, Mars to help Dad, or the station to stop them from building up their fleet?” I asked.

“We need plans for all three. Grab a chair and some coffee, kid, we’re going to be at this a while. Hope you remember some of that wargaming you did with me when you were younger.”

“The games I used to beat the tar out of you playing?” On my first cruise, I’d been set up as an apprentice under the Chief’s supervision, and we’d blown a lot of watches playing space war games together. I’d been playing games like that since I was a little kid and had gotten pretty good at them. It was fun – something I was proud of.

“Yeah, but this is for real. Good thing the Old Man always kept ship comps stocked with those sims. You’d almost think he had a reason to sharpen tactical skills for some of his crew.” He took a seat. I gaped. “Yeah, kid. Not just for you though. He’s had those games in there to look for and track any up and coming tac geniuses. He always said we’d need them.”

I sat down, tried to refocus on planning for the Indefatigable’s launch and what would come after. Meg reported that we’d be ready to leave in forty-eight hours, and we had a lot of work to get done in that time.

Chapter 5

Nicholas Stein

Partly to build up enough velocity for our trip as far away from Mars Station’s active radar systems as possible, and partly because I wanted to put the ship through its paces, we did some time at maximum burn shortly after leaving dock. Twenty-five gees was a lot of force, more than humans could usually survive for more than a brief burst. Even with the pressure suits and ablative seating, I didn’t think the crew could have taken much more than the hour. And for myself, I’d never get used to breathing liquid. The suits fill with an oxygen rich perfluorocarbon fluid to help maintain pressure. You breathe the stuff in and your body gets oxygen. The feeling as the goo fills your helmet is uncomfortably like drowning, but it worked. No one died, and the ship held the acceleration well.

We shut down the engines after a precomputed course correction and went into a long, slow glide past Mars. Over the next day, the planet’s gravity slowed us down and finally yanked us back around in the second leg of a long parabola. All the while we had near instantaneous contact with the company satellites around Mars. If an enemy ship popped up nearby, we’d know about it.

I settled back comfortably into my seat, scanning the bridge. The four crew on watch quietly went about their jobs. Not much to do, but everyone was staying alert. It was good to be back on a military vessel, with military crew. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it, but this was the life I had spent twenty years in. The civilian crews I’d hired when I started SSI were good, and if anything the company had gotten even tighter over time. But it wasn’t the same as the discipline of a combat ship.

The crew of the Defender were all hand picked – men and women I’d gathered over the last few years and groomed for this moment. Each of them was superbly trained. They worked together like a seamless whole, and I was well pleased with the results of all our efforts.

The only downside of the wait was having far too much time to think about Thomas, and how we parted. He wasn’t happy about being left behind, but how could I risk sending him off with so little experience? The long wait gave me too much time to think. And the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that he had been right. It was a mistake to leave him out of this. But I was torn. Risking my own life was one thing. Allowing my son to risk his was another entirely.

We’d have to have a long talk when I got back.

On the third day after our launch, we had actually swung back past Mars again and were headed away from the planet. This was where things were going to get tricky. If the enemy didn’t attack soon, we’d be far enough away that I would have to engage the engines to catch back up with Mars again. Our current vector wouldn’t bring us back toward the planet at all. We’d simply drift off into space without a course correction and an engine burn. Too soon and the burn would be visible to Mars Station. I was hoping to keep our presence quiet until we were actually needed. Every minute we waited was another minute it would take to close the gap back to Mars if the enemy attacked, though.

Fortune gave us our first good break that day. We still hadn’t drifted too far from the planet when my radar officer perked up suddenly. I stood up and quietly walked over to his station. He was young, and he almost jumped when I put my hand gently on his shoulder.

“Ease up, son,” I said. “What have you got?”

“I’m tracking some rocks, sir,” he replied.

“Rocks? What do you mean?”

“Yes, sir. Rocks, three of them. Just popped up onto scan, which doesn’t make sense. The systems are scanning mostly for sudden acceleration, like a ship under power, but asteroids don’t just speed up.”

“Not unless they’re sped up by something. Someone,” I corrected myself. “Get me a heading on those rocks, now. Where are they headed, and how fast?”

I jumped back to the captain’s chair, thumbed a button on the arm to broadcast over the ship.

“All hands, general quarters.” I said, keeping my voice even. That would get everyone into their pressure suits for emergency acceleration. Those of us on the bridge duty were already suited; we just needed to clip the suits into the bridge chairs, pop on helmets, and they’d fill with liquid perfluorocarbons to keep us breathing.

I could feel the familiar pre-battle thrum in my bones. It had been a while, but the force of old habits kept my face bland and the tension out of my voice. I tapped the intercom again, this time calling the engine room. “Bring the engines to standby and be ready to give me max burn on demand. This may turn out to be a drill, but I doubt it.”

I looked around the bridge. “Weapons, we ready on all launchers?.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Radar, give me an update.”

The young man at the radar con was sweating bullets now. I hid a smile. First times were always rough, and most of the crew, as skilled as they were, had never been in combat. Of course, neither had the enemy. Even my old experiences were nothing like how I expected a space battle to be fought today.

“The rocks aren’t too big, sir. One or two tons each,” the radar tech said. Marks, that was his name. Too many new names at one time. “But they’re moving fast. They’ll intercept Mars atmosphere in thirty minutes, but should burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere. They’re headed very close to Mars Station. Possible intersect there in ten minutes. Hard to be precise without an active ping. I’m relying on secondhand data from communication satellites.”

“That’s the game, then,” I said. “Blow the station with rocks. Or threaten it, anyway. Maybe they’re trying to see if the station has any countermeasures. Being cautious. Anyway, we can’t let them blow the station. Time to give them a little shock!”

I hit the general intercom. “All hands, prepare for max acceleration in fifteen seconds.” Then to the radar station: “Marks, active ping. I want to know what those rocks ate for breakfast. Weapons, as soon as you have firing solutions, dump enough fission missiles into those things to turn them into dust.” I sat back in my chair and let my suit fill with the syrupy stuff I’d be breathing for the next while.

Seconds later, we were headed back toward Mars Station at twenty-five gravities. We’d fired three full volleys of missiles, just to be sure, and they sped ahead of us toward their targets. My main concern now was where the actual ships were. We knew roughly where the asteroids had originated, and we were accelerating toward that point, but had no idea precisely where we’d find the enemy ships I knew had to be lying out there, waiting. Or how many of them were hiding there.

Marks’s voice came over the suit radio. “Sir, I’m being called by Mars Station. They’re sounding pretty anxious over there.”

“I’ll just bet they are,” I replied. My voice sounded odd. The perfluorocarbon goo didn’t transmit sound well, so we had subvocalization mikes for talking The computer assisted reconstruction of a real voice was good, but it still wasn’t quite right. “Pass the channel over to me.”

There was a short buzz, and then I heard a tech from the station calling out in a voice that sounded about ready to crack, “Attention, unidentified ship. You are in violation of Mars space, and in violation of the Lunar Accord treaty. Cease fire and identify yourselves!”

“This is the ship SSI Defender, Admiral Stein commanding. We are tracking three asteroids inbound on Mars Station, and have fired interceptors to destroy them before they can destroy you. We believe these asteroids to be part of an attack by an enemy force, and are moving to engage them.” No response. Well, I’d given him something to chew on. I figured he’d have his boss on the line in a minute or two.

I eyeballed the plot, showing the computer’s best guess of the enemy ships’ location when they gave the asteroids a push, and a blossoming ball of red that represented the probable region they could be in by now. That ball was getting bigger by the minute, but it was all still contained between Mars and one of the moons, Deimos. Which gave me an idea. There was a small mining colony on Deimos, and SSI still had access rights to their comm arrays for emergencies. This certainly qualified.

“Weapons, kick out sabot rounds, two full volleys, twenty second separation. Give each volley ten seconds burn then send them cold. Target vector is the center of the probability matrix.” He looked quizzical, but to his credit he didn’t ask any questions, just got right to it.

“Another message from Mars Station, sir. It’s Governor Clarke on a laser comm. Channel nine.”

I tapped a button to open the channel. “George, what’s up?” I said. “I’m sure you’re aware that we’re about to be pretty busy over here.”

“Nick, what the hell do you think you’re doing? I appreciate the shots you fired at the rocks, and I hope they work. I’ve already ordered everyone to evacuate the station anyway. We’ve got a few people left here, but not many.”

“Here?” I asked. “You’re on the station? George, you need to get out of there. It’s got to be their primary target.” There was no way I could adequately defend the station and move to engage the enemy ships at the same time. Most of Defender’s missile defense was fairly short range stuff.

“I’ll get out when my people get out, Nick. That’s beside the point. Your ship... I guess that’s what you wanted to get from R&D?”

“Well yes, George. I did say it was something we didn’t want them to get their hands on, I believe.” I smiled.

“I’d be remiss as a government official if I did not inform you that your actions are in violation of the Lunar Accord treaty and subject to mandatory death sentence by every nation on Earth,” Clarke replied. “But since this is Mars, not Earth, and you’re trying to save our butts up here, I’m going to quietly wish you good luck and good hunting. Be careful, Nick.” Then his eyes widened. My own gaze shot to our plot, and a moment later six new signatures appeared on the screen, accelerating lightly on a vector that took them closer to both us and the station.

“I see them, George. Got to cut this short now, we’re about to get some customers.”

I cut the link. We had strong tracking on all six ships now, and the computer had compressed the red probability matrix from where it thought they might be, down to where they could plausibly maneuver next. They were well off to one side of the track I’d fired those missile volleys down. Off to the side and high, but burning hard now to change their vector and come around at us. On our present course, we’d close to powered missile range in under a minute.

Then our first shots connected with the asteroids, and all three signatures vanished from the screen. So the first attack was foiled. And the enemy knew we had weapons to worry about. Almost in answer to the explosions, the computer showed a large number of bright red dots break off from the enemy ships and start moving toward my own ship.

“Con, radar: missiles inbound. I track thirty six missiles.”

Interesting. Either their missile envelope was much bigger than ours, or they were firing basically blind. “Hold fire,” I said. “Don’t return fire until we’re in our envelope, then full rapid fire, two volleys per enemy ship, mixed nukes and sabots.” Six of those missiles had come from each enemy ship. Was that their number of tubes? Or just a test of our reactions? “Stand by on missile countermeasures. Helm, get us out of the incoming missile path. I think those birds will just be drifting by the time they reach us, but lets not blunder into the path of one.”

The weapons officer – Sergeant Grant, I recalled – sounded off. “Ten seconds to powered missile envelope, sir.”

“Fire the planned sequence the second we hit range.” The ships were hurtling toward each other at an incredible speed now, but something was changing. The red line demarking the vector of one of the ships was turning, heading back – toward Mars Station. “Belay that! New fire coordinates, focus first three volleys at the ship that is turning, designate target alpha.” I could still see the small blips of shuttles and escape pods trying to jet away from the station. I had to buy them more time.

“Helm, bring us around to a bearing that will carry us between that ship and the station.” Then the gentle nudges that were our first missile launches, computer coordinated to fire in twos on opposite sides of the ship. The launchers were built to kick the missiles away from the central axis of the ship, so that the thrust of missiles firing from opposite sides equalized and had less effect on the course of the ship.

I could feel the chatter of the rear guns firing on a couple of missiles that got too close to us from their first volley. They hadn’t fired another round yet, which implied we had at least a little bit of range on them. The entire pack had banked around now, tracking in toward the Defender. The ship that had veered toward the station was still on that course, but Defender would be able to sweep into the path and obstruct any missiles it launched.

And there it was. All six ships firing, and it looked like all the missiles were trained at Defender again. Another six rounds per ship. A minute later, another. Same rate of fire we had. “Weapons,” I called out over our intercom, “Firing solution two. Three volleys per ship. Target the cluster of five ships on our flank. Fire at will, continuous fire!” That would overheat the tubes fast. We’d see how long Defender could maintain a maximum rate of fire.

The plot was getting confused, missiles tracking all over. Our own shots were proceeding at a good pace. Those first shots would be impacting shortly, but it seemed to take forever. Distances were so great between our ship and the enemy that the time delays involved made the whole thing feel unreal. Lags of minutes were going to be the norm between launch and impacts. We’d fired off all three volleys at the first ship and were loading to fire at the second, and the enemy had returned fire with seventy two missiles of its own. In all, one hundred twenty missiles were flying at various targets, and the plot was very busy. It was going to get hard to track all the missiles shortly. Of course, in another minute or two, the first ones would be hitting their targets.

I still had two more cards to play. “Helm, EM screens up.” We had strengthened the electro-magnetic screen most ships carried to deflect small bits of debris. Even the stronger version wouldn’t stop a direct hit, but they’d stop fragments and shrapnel from any nukes they sent our way, and in theory protect our electronics from EM waves off the nukes.

Now for the coup de grace. I smiled, teeth tight together, and called to the weapons station. The cluster of five ships had flown right through the arc those powered down warheads we had launched were traveling. And now, it was time to spring that trap. We bounced a signal off the colony radio tower, and on my command thirty two powered down SABOT missiles went live almost on top of the enemy. Thirty two warheads locked onto two targets, sixteen missiles to a ship. And now I got to see their defense.

I watched as a few shots wandered off course, confused by the number of nearby targets or with drives which didn’t reactivate properly. Two went after the wrong ships. Another two simply spiraled off into space. The enemy ships did have some sort of defensive fire, but to my eye it looked like it was more of a general gun, not a dedicated anti missile system. They were certainly nowhere near as effective as I’d expect from our own defenses. But there were five ships firing at those missiles, and that level of fire was bound to attrit a few.

The two that had wandered off to attack the wrong ship were destroyed. That left twenty eight missiles. I watched as blip after blip on my screen vanished from radar as their guns blasted apart the missiles. Then they were streaking the last short distance to the ships, and the SABOT rounds hit the enemy hulls.

Only four rounds penetrated the first ship, shedding their outer layer on the hull. A rod of depleted uranium was the core of each SABOT round, accelerated to a terrible speed. They smashed through the outer hull, then generally blasting through anything in their path to the other side of the ship. Scan showed those holes venting atmosphere, but the ship stayed under power.

The second ship was less lucky. Ten of the missiles got past their defenses. Ten uranium javelins blew through the hull. The ship veered off course, venting air from compartments all over the ship. It wasn’t firing missiles anymore, and I could imagine the panic that had set in among any crew who had survived. The ship started to spin, the streams of air it vented twisting the heading around madly.

Meanwhile, the first volley of our missiles were impacting the ship that had split off toward the station. This was a mix of nuclear and SABOT rounds. I could see that it was trying to shoot them down, but explosions blossomed on my screen. It would be a bit before scans cleared enough to assess damage, but I already had thirty two more missiles bearing down on them. I was confident it would overpower their defenses.

Then it was our turn. The first wave of enemy missiles came screaming in toward Defender. Our computer took over defense, firing all four gatlings continuously. Anti-missile missiles licked out, short range but fast, carrying only a light payload but designed to blow up incoming shots. The defense missiles took out twelve of the wave. The gatlings did a superb job and killed another twenty birds. That left four. I had just enough time to thumb the general intercom and holler, “Brace for impact! Incom...” And then the ship was hit, smacked like a giant had slapped a hand against the hull. Then two more shuddering impacts, the shriek of twisting metal audible even in our suits. Then one last crushing blow.

I was dazed. The suits protected against a lot of the impact, but it was still an overload. I shook my head gently. Red lights were flashing on my console, and I could see smoke drifting across the bridge. That meant we still had atmosphere.

“Damage report,” I croaked out, barely audible.

I tried again. “Damage report!” Better. Suited bodies around the bridge started moving again, people pulling themselves together.

A damage control readout popped onto the heads up display on my helmet’s faceplate. Two nukes had impacted near the ship. I had known in theory that we could survive hits like that. Now I had proof to back up the theory. In atmosphere, a nuclear weapon does most of its damage with a shock wave, which isn’t carried well in space. A nuclear blast might scorch the ship a bit, fry electronics, even shatter a few hull plates. And the shock certainly transmits through the interior, and shakes up the crew, I thought a bit ruefully. But most of the impact is simply wasted against the exterior of a ship designed to survive space.

Two SABOT rounds had also penetrated. One seemed to have hit some empty crew quarters, and the blast doors had automatically shut the area off to preserve the rest of the ship. The other, though, had pierced one of the missile control bays. No response from the crew of four who had been in there, which meant they were almost certainly dead. There would be time to mourn them later. We’d lost function in the four tubes controlled from that bay, which cut our rate of fire drastically.

The EM field seemed to have protected most of the sensitive electronics. Backups had already kicked in for failed units. One of the anti-missile turrets had gotten slagged a bit, too. It was locked up, probably some melted metal jammed in the mechanism somewhere.

Even as I took this all in, I was watching the scan console again. The first enemy ship we had targeted, the one that had run off by itself toward the station, was gone. Our radar picked up only chunks of scrap metal drifting where it had been. One of our hits had damaged something critical. Maybe the fusion engine that powered the ship’s ion drive had lost containment and exploded, or perhaps we had gotten lucky and hit some explosive ordnance. But the result was the same. One enemy ship was annihilated.

The ship we had hit so badly before – was it really just minutes ago? – had stopped accelerating completely, and tumbled end over end in an aimless drift. The other four were changing course again. I saw their vector lines shift, then lengthen again as they picked up speed on new headings – away from Mars, away from Sol, out toward the Belt again. Defender still had scores of missiles in space, as did the enemy, pouring on the speed to try to destroy each other.

“Helm, max thrust, bring us along a line perpendicular to those missile plots. Put some distance and some range out. Weapons, stand by to deploy decoys.” The decoys were an idea of Meg’s, and had never really been tested to my satisfaction. But we were out of other options. With over a hundred missiles bearing down on us now, they were our best shot at surviving. “Deploy decoys!” I called, and four missile sized probes detached from the hull in four different directions. Each one was broadcasting a fake signature that matched the Defender as closely as possible. Each decoy was using everything we could think of that might confuse a targeting computer.

Thirty more missiles rocketed in toward us, but this time Meg’s engineering really proved its worth. The decoys drew off all but two of the missiles, and those were quickly dispatched. Antimissile guns and rockets obliterated most of the rest, given extra time by the decoys. Two decoys were completely destroyed as well, but it was well worth it! We were accelerating on a line away from the missiles now, at almost as strong a boost as the missiles themselves could accomplish. It wasn’t likely anything else was going to hit us if we could just survive that next wave, only twenty four this time.

Guns flashed, and rockets streamed out behind us as we raced away from the incoming missiles. One after another, I watched them explode harmlessly at a distance. It was going to be close.

Two nukes exploded at almost the same moment, one on each side of the ship. One clipped a missile of our own as it was launching and detonated the warhead, sending shockwaves back into the tube. The tube shattered from the inside, firing debris as deadly as any bullet through bulkheads into neighboring compartments. The entire ship wheeled over on its side as the impact and atmosphere vent twisted us off course. Lights flickered and died all over the ship as power was interrupted, and emergency lights popped on.

I waited another minute, but there were no more impacts. We had outraced the remaining missiles, but we were hurtling away from Mars now without power, and starting to tumble. Worse, I had no way to see the enemy reaction, no idea what they were doing next. Without power, I was blind. And without power, we’d all be very cold soon.

Chapter 6

Thomas

Watching Dad’s battle near Mars was a terrible thing. Not as bad as being there, I suppose, but bad enough in its own way. I was in the command center when things went to hell there. Because we knew Defender’s course plan, we knew roughly were the ship was, even though it wasn’t showing up on scans. And we had the excellent data on local Mars space from the satellites in orbit there. Everything had a short lag, because of the distance. What we were seeing was a couple of minutes behind what was actually going on. But it was still all I could do to keep myself from getting on the radio to Dad when I saw the pirate ships pop onto radar.

Word about the fight spread like wildfire across the station, and work just stopped. Anyone who was near to the command center came in to watch silently as the holotank replayed the battle with merciless precision. Everyone else plugged their consoles into the feed, and watched as best they could where they were.

I had no doubts Dad would engage, even at six to one odds. It was just who he was. He wouldn’t let them blow the station if he could stop them. And I guess he had lived the last couple of decades waiting for this day. It was his moment, his dance.

A cheer went up in the room when the Old Man’s trick with the missiles took out one pirate. The Chief’s glare silenced them. I winced as each missile struck Defender. I think a couple of people started crying as we watched those last nukes explode near the ship, and saw the secondary explosions scatter bits of the hull into space. Then Defender went into a slow tumble and stopped accelerating.

Dad’s missile launches had done their work too, though. Of the four enemy ships that had tried to withdraw, another blew up completely and at least two more took serious hits, slowing them down. Only one of the ships looked to have gotten away clean.

And then... Nothing. No power up from Defender, and the Mars radars lost track of the ship entirely as it continued off into deep space. We kept vigil in the command room, watching the screen and listening for a call.

It was two hours before we saw the signature of a ship under light acceleration on the Mars Station long range radar. I heaved a huge sigh, the weight lifting from my shoulders. We knew from the location that it had to be Defender, and another cheer went up around the room. I looked at Chief Acres and saw him visibly relax, exhaustion replacing the tension in his posture. I wasn’t the only one worried about Dad.

As Defender began to slowly limp back toward Mars, the Chief clapped his hands together. The booming noise startled everyone.

“The Old Man’s done his part!” he said. “Now it’s our turn. Meg tells me the Inde will be ready to leave within the hour. If we move fast, we might be able to catch those injured rats with their pants down. Crew on board in fifteen minutes, prep for launch.” Everyone sat still another moment, staring at him. We’d all been sitting so long, watching the screen, that it took a few minutes to bring ourselves back to where we were.

“What’re you looking at?” he roared. “Move, people! Scat!”

The crowd cleared out double fast. I stood up, my legs aching from tension and sitting too long. “This blows our careful planning up, pretty much,” I said.

“Plans never survive past first contact with the enemy,” Acres quipped back. “I’ve got an idea or two that might turn the liabilities of our merchant ship turned war ship into benefits. Let’s get her out where she can do some good.”

After launch, we spent several hours on high burn, pouring on the speed. A lot was riding on us beating those other pirate ships back to the captured repair station. All too soon though, we had to drop back down to a more basic acceleration. We wanted the pirates to think we were just another dumb ore carrier, and we were getting close to the outside edge of their active radar. Coming in at ten gravities of acceleration would have been a dead giveaway that we were more than just a merchant ship.

We’d done our best to quickly camouflage the modifications to the ship. The engine was impossible to hide, of course. A bigger engine is a bigger engine, and it was sticking off into space for everyone to see. But the missile tubes were already pretty hard to spot when the ports were closed. You really had to know what you were looking for to see them. That left the antimissile gatlings and the nose mounted rail gun. Meg designated a crew to quickly tack some scrap plates over them. The end result wasn’t going to fool a careful inspection, but might be enough to make a less cautious observer assume the ship was what it looked like – an old and somewhat outdated cargo carrier that had been upgraded a bit by her captain.

I was working bridge crew as damage control, which is to say I was doing nothing except staying out of the Chief’s hair. Being his exec had been an experience so far, but I wondered if I was going to have a chance to do much at all in the upcoming fight. I hated sitting still.

“Active radar and laser pings from the station ahead!” Jim called out. We were out of our helmets and breathing cabin air again. No point to burn up the liquid stuff when we were only pulling normal accelerations.

“Well, that didn’t take long. Now, the question is, will they take the bait?” I asked.

“We’ll see soon enough,” said the Chief. He had been pacing ever since we dropped to normal acceleration. I didn’t think he liked to sit around, either.

“Chief, they’re radioing to us. They’re saying that they got a tip about a ship carrying stolen goods, and they need to segregate and search each incoming ship. They’re sending us an escort, sounds like,” said the woman over at communications. I couldn’t recall her name. It was something I was actively working at, remembering the names of all the people around me.

“Yeah, escort us right into their brig,” Acres laughed. “Watch for their escort ship. Maintain course.” He thumbed a comm console. “Cargo, this is the chief. Make sure our special delivery is packaged and ready to rock.”

“Aye, Chief,” was the immediate response. “It’s all gift wrapped and everything for them.”

“Now we wait for their escort,” Acres said, finally plunking himself down in his seat.

We didn’t have long to wait. Radar picked up two ships coming at us almost immediately. “Two,” I said aloud, like the word had a bad flavor. “That has the potential to mess things up a lot. What do you think, Chief?”

“We stick to the plan. It never was perfect in the first place, but it’s still worth a shot.”

The two ships were coming up fast. It wasn’t long at all before the comm tech reported another incoming call, this time from the ships.

“Put it on speakers,” Acres said.

“Attention, cargo ship. We are claiming your ship and your cargo. They are already forfeit. We have weapons on this ship capable of destroying you. Your lives are ours now. You have a choice: surrender now and join our other hostages until you are ransomed. Or die under fire from our weapons. The decision is yours. You have one minute to cut all power from your engines if you intend to comply with our demands and live. No further warnings. Out.”

“Well, direct and to the point, ain’t they?” drawled Acres. “Helm, cut engine power. Let’s see what these boys do next, shall we? Weapons – stay ready, just in case. I get the feeling these folk might not be completely trustworthy.”

But we didn’t get any more threatening calls, and once our engines were shut down the ships closed on us without incident. Both flipped over and matched our vector, then came up alongside the Inde. Which meant we had guessed right. The Chief’s hunch was that while they wanted to capture ships, they didn’t want to allow those ships too close to the base, so they were probably boarding ships and taking the crew hostage, then bringing the captured ships in. Safer that way, and it prevented a desperate ship captain from doing something crazy like ramming their base with his ship. Now, would they both dock and board us, or would they place one ship on overwatch? One of their ships pulled ahead of us a bit, offset from the other ship as it closed up on our port side, which answered the question. That one could fire on us if we did anything stupid, which would make things trickier.

The radio picked up another broadcast from the ships. “Hold present speed and heading. We will board your ship momentarily. Resistance will be met with lethal force. Surrender any hand weapons you are carrying and turn yourself in to our troops as they enter.” I could see the ship jetting slowly closer on our port cameras. As it glided in, they pirates extended a set of docking clamps. They’d link up directly with our main hatch in a few minutes.

I looked over at Chief Acres. He’d stood up, and had just snatched up his helmet. I realized he’d been strapping on body armor while I was watching the screens. The armor was black, a mix of specially crafted fibers that were designed to stop most small arms, and a set of plates over the wearer’s vitals that would stop a heck of a lot more. “Going somewhere, Chief?” I asked.

“Yup. You’ve got the con, kid. You know what needs to be done. I’m going where I can do what I do best.” He snatched up a rifle from where it sat strapped to his chair, snapped down his visor, and bounded out the door. Down near the main ship hatch, where the pirates were about to board, he’d join a handpicked squad, all armored up the same as him. The first squad the pirates sent over were in for a nasty surprise.

And just like that, I was in command of a ship again. All around me, bridge crew looked expectantly at me. I froze for a moment. What the hell made me think I could do this job? I wasn’t ready for this. My father had been right to leave me behind. I was going to get people killed.

I took a deep breath. I was far from perfect, but I was who we had. I’d have to do. There was no margin for error here. I tried to remember how my father looked when he was commanding and drew a complete blank. My mind didn’t want to think about him right now. I needed to command my own way.

“Weapons, what have we got that can take out that second ship?” I asked.

“Missiles are no good,” the tech replied. “They’re well inside minimum range. Nukes are hardcoded to not blow that close to us, and the SABOTs won’t build up enough velocity to do more than dent their hull.”

“Can we hit them with the antimissile guns?”

“Yes, but they’re not really designed for hull penetration. They may do some damage, but barring a lucky hit, I doubt we’ll really do more than make them mad.”

Well, I knew this wasn’t going to be easy. “What about the railgun?” I asked.

He stopped. “Honestly, I don’t know. It’s not well tested against real targets. In theory, the rounds should do a lot of damage and have excellent range. There’s no minimum range, either. But the tracking arc is slim. We only have a small rotation around the nose of the ship. If we can get them into that arc, though...”

“Sounds like that’s our best bet unless they back off. OK, keep an eye on them. Tell me if they get in the railgun arc.”

With a loud clang, the ship pulled up alongside us and attached docking clamps. We were firmly fixed to each other now, committed. Any minute now, they would open the door to our ship and all hell would break loose. Still, the second ship held station.

Gunfire erupted somewhere back in the ship. Jolted into remembering, I turned to the bridge hatch, and tapped a code into the number pad on the wall next to it. A blast door slammed down from the ceiling of the door frame, locking the bridge off from the rest of the ship. Should have done that right after the Chief left, and not waited. That door would at the least delay attackers a decent amount of time. They’d have to cut their way through it. Small arms wouldn’t be enough to do the job. No more mistakes; how many times had Dad told me that victory belonged to the side that made the next to last mistake?

Acres’ men down below had been laying in wait, hidden in the passages right around the main hatch. They were linked into the camera system, waiting until a decent number of enemy men had entered before closing the jaws of the trap. The plan was for them to open fire on the enemy troops, and attempt to push back through the hatch, ideally taking the enemy ship. I tried to tab up the camera in the hall where the fighting was going on, but it must have been damaged in the initial exchange. I couldn’t see what was going on back there.

“Sir,” that was the radar tech, “the second ship is warming up its drive. Looks like they are preparing to maneuver.” I watched the plot. They were dropping back a bit. From there they could slip up alongside us at a ninety degree angle to the other pirate ship. What were they doing?

“Can we get a zoom on camera views of that second ship?” I had a bad feeling about this. They were up to something, something sneaky, something I hadn’t anticipated.

“Yes, sir. Pulling the camera up on the main screen now,” he replied. Now I could see the side of the ship, and there was some sort of movement along their hull facing us. “Zooming now.”

I caught my breath when I saw what the movement was. They had a squad of space-suited men out there, hooked to their hull. And they were carrying three large, flat, disk like objects between them. I didn’t like the looks of it at all.

“Thoughts?” I asked. “I’m thinking explosives of some sort. That’s why the sharp angle to their other ship, to avoid blast through damage.”

Weapons called out, “I think you’re right, sir. Those look like they could easily be mines, and quite possibly carrying enough explosive to punch a hole in the hull, maybe even do a lot more damage to the ship when they blow.”

Mind racing, I stared at the plot. I figured we had about a minute before they were in range to jump across to us with the mines. I had to keep them away from the ship. But we couldn’t fire missiles, they weren’t in the arc of the rail gun, and we couldn’t move... Or could we? “How firm are those docking clamps?” I asked our helmsman.

He thought a moment. “Strong. They’re meant to stand up under some differences in accelerations when two ships dock, so they have to be pretty tough. You aren’t thinking of...?”

I punched the button for the general intercom. “All crew, prepare for decompression. Making emergency maneuvers, decompression possible. Suit now!” Following my own advice, I popped my helmet onto the suit I already wore, and I saw the rest of the bridge crew scrambling to do the same.

We had perhaps thirty seconds left before they were in range to be dangerous. “Helm, bring us under acceleration, back us away from the second ship and get our nose into alignment with them. I want them in our railgun arc, now! Weapons, pop the covers off our antimissile gatlings. I want those guns free to target their EVA squad and especially their mines, if we can’t swing around in time.”

A chorus of ‘aye, sir’ and the bridge crew went to work. I could feel the beginnings of our retro rockets coming alive, feel the gentle acceleration as the ship turned. Ships in space aren’t really designed to do a lot of backing up. They’ve got propulsion units in the nose for precise steering, and those can be used for reverse thrust as well. But they aren’t all that strong, so the changes in velocity would be slow, doubly slow because we were trying to move two ships with only the nose jets of one. I heard the first shrieks of stressed metal as the docking clamps tried to hold the two ships together. That would probably get worse. We were putting a lot more stress on those units than they were designed to take.

I was dimly aware that the gatlings had opened fire, saw an explosion in space near the enemy ship. Most of my focus was on the railgun arc, marked on my scan screen as a red circle, and the slow drift of the enemy ship as it slipped into that circle. First the nose... “Not yet,” I said. “Hold off on the railgun another moment.”

Their bridge slipped into the cone of fire. Now the shrieking of tortured metal was almost unbearable, even in suits. I winced. New lights popped onto the damage control screen, and a warning bell began to cry out decompression alert. We’d popped a seal somewhere or part of a seal. We were venting air into space. But still, we continued to turn.

Finally I had the front half of their ship in the arc. “Stop thrusters!” I called. “Weapons, fire railgun, continuous fire! Rake their ship from bridge to missile bays, then focus fire there,” I pointed to a spot on the screen that I was pretty sure was their missile storage. The weapons tech punched a button, and the railgun began spewing iron slugs across the void.

Railguns use magnetism to fire their ammunition. They take a charged round, and run it through a highly charged magnetic field, pushing the object out at a powerful velocity. Really, they worked a lot like the ion engines that propelled the ship, but instead of lightweight charged particles, the railgun spat out hundreds of chunks of metal. It shouldn’t make a lot of noise, but I swore I could feel or hear something as the gun went into operation.

The result was immediate. Plates around their bridge shattered under the impact. Air vented from the enemy ship in huge gusts, moisture freezing into mist as it was sucked out into space. The railgun continued to track along the side of the helpless ship, blowing chunks of metal away from the frame to spin out into space. Two of the hapless EVA crew were in the way of the steady stream of metal, and vanished from the screen into puffs of red mist and spinning suit debris. Then the gun was targeting the missile launcher, which exploded into a cloud of shrapnel. Slugs punched into where I thought their ammunition was stored, but I didn’t get the nice secondary explosion I was hoping for. Still, the railgun was tearing hole after hole into their hull, ripping huge chunks out of deck plating, walls, tearing deeper into the ship with each impact.

And then we got the secondary explosion. Inside the ship, something lost nuclear containment and blossomed into a bright flash of light. The ship tore itself into two pieces, and then the aft section with the engines exploded as well, a devastating blast that completely obliterated the hull. The forward section went spinning off into deep space, away from Indefatigable and the other ship still latched to our hull.

I didn’t hesitate. “Radar, scan for those mines and crew. Any sign of them?”

“All three mines were destroyed, sir,” came the reply. “Impossible to be certain about their crew, but I think most of them are dead.” Or would be soon, if not already. If they were alive, they were out there somewhere, drifting in a suit, breathing canned air, nothing between them and space but the thick skin of the suit. That air wouldn’t last forever, and then they would die alone in the black of space. It was a nightmare way to go for most spacers. I had a hard time feeling bad for those men, though. They’d brought it on themselves.

“How bad was that decompression?” I asked.

“Looks like we blew part of the airlock seal between the ships. Blast doors dropped in place to seal the area, but that means we can’t support the attack squad, and it sounds like they’re being pressed hard – they made it onto the enemy ship, but they’re pinned down,” said the communication tech.

I thought fast. Time to take another chance? It seemed the lesser of evils. “OK...Marks...” I started, pausing as I read the weapon tech’s name tag. I had to get better at remembering names, it was something I’d noticed that Dad did as easily as breathing. “You have the con. If we’re stopped, take the ship and what you can of the crew, and make for Mars Station. Try to link up with the Admiral there.”

He stared at me. I grinned back. “Don’t worry, you’ll do fine. And I fully intend to be back here shortly. Comms...Williams,” I corrected myself. “Get the crews of both missile bays to meet me in the armory. We’re going to go reinforce the Chief.”

Chapter 7

Thomas

I punched the code to snap the bridge door open again and headed down the hall toward the armory where racks of weapons and the armored pressure suits were waiting. Another command code opened the door, and I silently thanked Chief Acres for forcing me to memorize the dozen or so different command codes for the ship. It had seemed like a lot at the time, and were we really likely to need to blast shield the bridge or lock out the engines? But things happen. Had happened. Would happen.

I walked in, grabbed armored suit parts and started changing out my standard pressure suit for one of the armored suits. I was about halfway suited up when the missiles crews arrived. Ten men, six women. All started quickly swapping suits for the armor. I was finished first, and unlocked the weapons rack. They were good rifles, gunpowder based arms with a special mix that didn’t rely on outside oxidation from the air so it could be fired in a vacuum. The ammunition was caseless, to save on stray bits of metal flying about, and armor piercing to get past enemy body armor if they had it. That boosted the risk of decompression, but we’d all be suited anyway. We had a decent number of frangible rounds as well, designed to shatter on impact with anything really solid, so they would never punch through a hull plate and let the air out. But that same feature made them useless against body armor, and I was pretty sure the enemy would have armor.

So AP rounds it was. I passed out rifles and ammo packs to everyone, and watched as they made final preparations. As people finished getting their gear together, I started talking. “OK. The Chief is in there fighting, and so are the rest of our crew. The enemy is over there too – the Chief pushed them off our ship, at least, but the last report I have is that our men are pinned down over there.”

“We don’t leave our people in trouble,” I went on. I was rewarded by nods and a few affirmative grunts. “Those people over there are putting everything we love at risk. It’s time to show them that we’re not going to sit on our thumbs.”

“What’s the plan, sir?” one of the men asked, settling a rifle against his shoulder.

“We need to get our people out of there and then capture the ship. There’s seventeen of us. I want two squads. Stay with your usual section leader. I’ll travel with the crew from Bay One for now.” The crew from that bay shifted a bit, seemed to stand a bit taller. “Let’s go, people. Everyone is counting on us.”

We moved back into the hall, then down toward the contested airlock area. Up ahead was the blast door, sealed to retain the air in the rest of the ship after the depressurization alarm sounded. I waited until my squads were in between that blast door and the next one up the hallway. “Activate magnetic boots, if you haven’t yet,” I said over our radios. “I’m using this hallway as an airlock.” I closed the blast door behind us, then once that was sealed, I keyed the sequence to over ride the lock ahead of us and opened that door.

Air went streaming past us, but we were already moving, mag boots keeping us gripped to the deck as we pushed out into the hall where the battle had been fought. Bodies hung from their mag boots throughout the hall as grisly testament to the fight. Some were ours, but I was glad to see that most of the dead seemed to be the enemy. Gobbets of blood floated around the hall in small globules of red ice, and the frozen dead bodies drifted in the wind generated by the air venting from our hallway.

I let two of the missile techs who looked like they knew what they were doing take point. As we crossed over to the other ship, the evidence of fighting became more and more apparent. Slugs from the guns had gouged chunks out of the decks and walls, and shattered some of the lights. Another body here, an enemy. I checked out what he had for gear, trying to ignore that this was a dead man. I needed to know what we were up against. The armor looked a lot like our own, unfortunately, which meant it was probably good stuff. The rifle that the dead man carried looked different from ours, but still dangerous. I didn’t know small arms well enough to make a guess about how theirs compared with ours, but it all looked like top end gear. My Dad had the military contacts to get access to the good stuff. But where had these pirates acquired expensive military grade hardware? I filed the question away to answer later. No time right now.

Still no air pressure here. I wondered how much of their ship had lost air when the seal blew. I placed a hand on the wall next to me, and felt the vibration of rounds impacting against the walls nearby. That meant we were close – very close. I signaled the teams to slow down. No sense barreling into the middle of a fight. We’d be there soon enough.

The enemy crew spotted us about the same time we saw them. The guns made no noise in the vacuum, so we weren’t hearing the shots, although we could feel the impacts the rounds made when they hit something reverberating through the deck. We rounded a corner, and one of our lead troops suddenly stopped moving, then keeled over, blood streaming from a shattered faceplate.

“Move!” I hollered. The first ranks dropped to a knee and started firing off shots blindly ahead. Behind them, myself and the other middle ranks laid down fire over their heads. Whoever it was wasn’t really happy about being shot at, since the answering fire from the enemy was light and then vanished entirely. They were backing up.

We surged down the corridor after them, firing as we went. Once we hit the next intersection, I called over the radio, “Squad two, move down to their engineering. Try to take control of the room there. Squad one with me.”

A bit ahead of us was what was left of the Chief’s squad. One of them had ripped a hatch right out of its housing and was using it as a barrier to protect against enemy fire. They were huddled behind that crude cover. The Chief had gone in with ten crew plus himself. They had done well, pushing the enemy back off our ship and killing a lot of them. But they were in rough shape now. Only three people still had their weapons up at all. Four others were lying on the floor behind the barricade, held down by magnetic clips. I could see the relief in the men’s sweat streaked faces.

“Where’s the Chief?” I asked over the radio.

The man in front of me gave me a pained look. That wasn’t good. “Right here,” he said, pointing down at one of the casualties. “He took a round, and he’s in a bad way.”

I thought fast. We needed to finish this fight and get our wounded out safely.

“You three, get them up and moving. Turn off their mag boots and drag them if you have to, but get them off this ship and down to our medical bay. Seconds probably count for some of these guys,” I said, and it was true. Acres and one other crewman both looked especially bad. “Move! We’ve got you covered here.”

Our injured out of the way, I knew we had two key areas to capture – the enemy bridge and their engine room. Both would be well defended. Both were vital to the ships operation. I had sent one team down to engineering already. Should I bring my other team down there as well? Or try to take the bridge with that squad? Or was there a third option?

I thought it over for a moment, the germ of an idea forming. I turned to my squad. “Move out to support the other squad. We’re taking their engine room,” I said over the tactical channel. Then I switched channels to talk to the Indefatigable’s bridge. Acres hadn’t given me updates, which had made it impossible for me to help support him. I didn’t want to repeat the mistake.

“Bridge, this is Stein. Acres is down, I have him moving back to medical. I need to know if you can fire off a few SABOT rounds from our starboard launchers and have them circle back around to hit the other ship.” I got a dubious affirmative, but it was the best idea I had. With the missile crews off operating as tactical squads, there was no one left to manage reloads, so we were stuck with what we had loaded for SABOTs – I could get four rounds off. “Fire the four SABOTs, swing them out to pick up enough acceleration, and then peg them through the enemy bridge.”

“We’re still linked, sir. We could hit the Inde if we’re not lucky,” was the reply.

“Then be lucky. Better yet, be good. Captain Stein out.” I was acting captain now, with Acres out of commission. I hoped that ordering the Inde to fire missiles that would impact at thousands of meters per second was a good idea. Fifty meters off and they could hit the Inde, or blow my men and I to bits in the engine room.

I got back on the tac channel, “All tactical squads, expect multiple impact of SABOTs to the forward section of the ship in about one minute. Stay on suit air.” Even one missile striking their bridge should pretty well mess up anyone inside.

Of course, if I thought of the idea, they might as well. They could do the same thing to the Inde, so I made my way down toward their engine room by way of their port side missile bay. The bay door was locked, blast door slid in place, and even if though we had a cutter with us, it would just take too long to punch through the door. Toughened as it was against explosives and small arms, it was going to be a tough nut to crack. Luckily, we didn’t have to. The design of this ship was remarkably similar to the Indefatigable’s layout. That alone was making me wonder if Dads teams had sprung a leak at some point, or if it was just similar design because that was the most logical way to handle the problems of cargo ship conversion.

Either way, it meant that I knew the guts of this ship almost as well as my own. Which meant that I knew the relays and computer controls for the actual missile tubes all passed from the missile control room through a conduit, and I knew right about where that conduit needed to pass under the deck plates. A couple of quick explosive cubes later, the floor was a bit torn up and the conduit was cut. No more missiles for these pirates. Repair of that mess would take at least an hour.

Then the SABOTs hit. Each impact shook the ship, tossing us all against the deck like we’d been slapped by a giant hand. The three impacts left my head ringing from being slammed against the deck and wall. I found out later that one of our missiles had strayed enough that the Inde bridge crew was worried about it, so they took out our own missile with a gatling. But the other three streaked in and smashed the front end of the enemy ship.

Once I recovered enough to talk again, I called our bridge for a quick report and damage estimate. Three missiles hit the front end of the enemy ship. It looked like two had pierced their bridge, and the Inde wasn’t detecting any power from the front end at all. Everything was shut down. Best guess was any crew up there were dead. I got my squad up and moving in the opposite direction – toward the engine room.

The hall outside their engineering was a mess. The walls were scorched. Tiny shards of metal and shrapnel floated about randomly. Here and there were patches of red fog, zero gravity and cold temperatures combining to turn blood into a drifting mist. I tried to avoid those, shivering inside when I accidentally brushed the floating remains of what was once a person.

Our crew and theirs were still exchanging fire, but it was sporadic, not continuous shooting. People were hunkered down and no one really wanted to make the next big push. What bullets did to people they hit was never pleasant, and the effect wasn’t improved by zero gravity. I sent my squad in to help reinforce the other squad and pull out our wounded. Then I found a wall mounted intercom unit and yanked a couple of plugs out from the glove of my left hand. Comm interfaces were pretty standardized, and with luck I could plug in here.

It seemed to work. I tabbed to general channel, and tried to turn on the receiver. Nothing. I tried again, and this time was greeted with a green telltale on my heads up display. I had linked into the enemy ship’s radio system. Now to give them a little taste of their own medicine.

“Attention, pirate crew, this is the captain of the ship you were attempting to seize. Those impacts you felt a few minutes ago were our weapons. We have fired SABOT missiles at your bridge and killed the crew inside. Your other ship has also been destroyed.” I paused. “You will surrender immediately, or we will retreat from your ship to our own, and continue firing more SABOTs until our heat scans show that we’ve killed every living thing on this ship. Surrender now if you want to live. Continue fighting, and you will certainly die.” I broke the connection. The ball was in their court, now.

I ordered our crew to cease fire, but we still had our weapons trained into the smoke filled room ahead. Time passed. The chronometer on my HUD said it was under a minute, but it felt like hours. Ee saw movement through the smoke. Everyone sharpened their grip on rifles.

“Hold your fire as long as you can,” I said over our tactical channel. “Give them a chance to surrender.”

Give us a chance to get out of this with no more dead or wounded crew, I thought silently.

A rifle clattered to the deck in front of us, tossed from the engine room. Another was thrown out the hatch toward us, and another, and another. The enemy crew came forward then, hands on their heads, faces grim and scared inside their suits. My squads took them into custody, using a set of zip ties to secure their wrists. And just like that, it was over.

A sweep of the rest of the ship turned up another half dozen living crew. All surrendered. We had sixteen prisoners now, all men who would be instantly condemned to death by any court on Earth. What I was going to do with them, I wasn’t sure. For now they were left unsuited, bound hand and foot in our small cargo hold under armed guard.

Their ship was a mess. We’d torn up their bridge with the SABOTs, and running the ship was going to be rough for a while. The first thing we had done was quickly patch the holes made by the missiles, our gunfire, and the airlock damage from the Indefatigable’s boost. Once that was done, we opened the damaged sections and got air circulating around the ship, and we could begin making repairs a bit more rapidly.

The engines were still fine. We’d messed up one of their missile bays, and the repair on that conduit was going to take time we didn’t have. The other missile bay was still working OK, which gave us three active missile tubes. I wanted to go over their logs and communication station, both of which might have vital intelligence. But first I needed to check in with my own crew, make sure everyone was OK, especially the folks down in medical getting treated.

Our medical center was a small room, pretty much like the wardrooms crew bunked in around the rest of the ship. Folded cots lined the walls and nominal ceiling, strapped to the bulkhead sturdily. A yank on a pull strap would pop them loose from the wall, and the cot would lock itself out once it had swung to ninety degrees from the base. The floor was left clear, both to store things and for mag boots to work well. Field surgery was a delicate process, and we wanted our medics to be able to lock themselves down to the floor for greater leverage instead of floating about. Zero gee medicine was a tough field.

As I walked in, eight beds were in use. Four of those were bodies wrapped in the long black bags I had hoped we’d never need to use. The other four were crew who were too injured to be returned to duty. I’d been informed on the way down that we had another eight crew who had sustained minor injuries, ranging from sprains to a few minor broken bones, mostly ribs where rounds had smacked into armor. Chief Acres had brought along ten extra troops for the attack in the hopes that we could board the station with them. But our casualties had dropped the effective crew compliment down to twenty four uninjured and eight walking wounded. We could run the ship with half that, but not at peak efficiency. Our margin for another boarding was fairly slim.

Acres was one of the wounded. The field surgeon we had on board was working on someone in another cot right now, so I turned off my mag boots and floated up to where the Chief was laying. He wasn’t conscious. An enemy shot had hit him in the belly. The round slipped between the armored plates there and dug into his gut somewhere. I didn’t know the extent of the damage, but the drainage tube from his gut, ventilation tube into his mouth, morphine drip into his IV, and a couple of other tubes I didn’t recognize made it look pretty bad. As I was taking the sight in, the surgeon spotted me and flitted over.

“It’s bad, but not as bad as you might think if we can get him to a hospital pretty soon. I’ve got one other who’s worse. That one won’t last another day without major surgery. They’re both stable – for now. But it won’t last.”

I winced. “If we turn back now, we lose our window to hit that refit station. Maybe for good.”

He grunted. “I can’t advise you on strategy, Captain,” he said. “All I can do is inform you of the facts. Which are that these two men,” he gestured at Acres and the man nearby he had just been working on, “will both be dead if they don’t get medical attention soon.”

“Are there adequate facilities on the R&D station?” I asked.

“No. These men need Mars or Earth. They need a real hospital, real surgeons! I’ve done what I can, but I don’t have the skill or the equipment to fix these injuries. Acres needs a new liver, and his kidneys are failing from stress. Wilson took a shot to the inside of the thigh that migrated shrapnel up through his pelvis, tearing things to pieces in there. It was all I could do to stop him from bleeding out, but he won’t last long with just my patches.”

I let out a hissing breath. This was Acres! I didn’t think anything could take him down. Seeing him like this shook me. “Thanks, doctor. I appreciate the candor. I’ll do what I can for these men.”

“Take care of your men first. It’s what your father would do,” he replied.

I forced a smile, biting back the angry retort that was my first reaction. The last thing I needed right now was someone telling me what my father would do.

“I thought you weren’t going to give strategic advice, doc,” I said through gritted teeth. He made as if to say something, but I went on. “No, don’t interrupt me. First, I am not my father. What he would do is not relevant here. What I do is. Second, we’re at war, and every person who boarded that ship knew the risk. Myself included. If I have to sacrifice those men to stop the enemy, I will.” With that, I spun myself and pushed down toward the floor. His jaw was still hanging as I grabbed the railing and pulled myself out the door into the hall.

Served him right, but it didn’t do much to make me feel better. The medic was right about my father. Dad would do anything he could for his crew, anything to keep them safe.

To a point. But he would also order men into battle. He would share risks, but he would order people to take risks as well. The question was: how could I save the injured men under my command and still take the fight to the enemy?

Chapter 8

Nicholas Stein

It took us a couple of hours to get the fusion reactor kicking out power safely again. It shut down automatically to prevent a catastrophic failure when nearby systems were damaged. The crew rerouted essential systems to backups from the fourth missile bay computers, and were able to bring fusion back on line. That gave us power again, and we were able to warm up the ship and get air circulating again. Good thing too, because our suit air was getting a bit thin by that time.

With power out, we’d had no way to track the enemy ships, and no way to contact Mars Station. We were blind – I could only guess what was going on out there. We hadn’t been blown to bits while we were helpless, which I hoped meant that the enemy ships had continued their retreat or been destroyed by our last missiles. We hadn’t been picked up by Mars Station rescue ships either though, which could have meant a lot of things.

Once we had the power online, I ordered the helmsman to swing us back toward Mars. We’d drifted a considerable way, and I kept our acceleration low to avoid adding to the structural damage we’d received. I tapped the local satellites immediately to get scan information from the end of the fight and found I had no access. Mars Station had killed my codes. I smiled. Not unexpected. Clarke had to do that. I really hadn’t given him any legal choice. No matter. I re-entered a new set of codes for the back door to the SSI satellites in orbit around the planet, and those still worked fine. Always leave yourself a way to talk to any piece of electronics you manufacture.

I watched the plot. The enemy had fled, leaving Mars local space as quickly as they could. They didn’t even slow down when we lost power, just kept running. Well, we’d taken out half their fighting force before they escaped, so it was understandable. They hadn’t expected any resistance at all, and then had multiple ships blown out from under them. They had to be wondering right now what else they had missed.

I was getting damage reports on my console now, but I already knew the extent of the damage from looking it over personally during those early repairs. Number two and number three missile bays were down and would require extensive repairs. Number three was the worst, where we’d actually had one of our own missiles blow inside the tube. That was just bad luck, but those four tubes were in terrible shape. The number two bay was damaged enough that the fire controls were shot. A repair crew was working on it, and seemed to think they could get it running again soon. That would still leave the ship at seventy five percent of normal firepower though.

We had blown all our decoys and would need to load new ones. The only ones in existence were on the R&D station. One of the antimissile gatlings was fried and needed to have melted metal removed from the frame before it would be able to acquire targets again. Long range active radar was toast, the arrays had simply been blasted off the hull by one of the nukes. Again, something we could repair while under way if we had time. About half our electronics systems were on backups at this point, too.

Most worrying was the stress to the ship frame. Now that the computers were back up, they were doing analysis of the stress damage from repeated impacts. The damned computer coldly announced that it predicted an eighty percent chance of the ship simply coming apart if we tried to accelerate at twenty gravities again. That dropped to a more hopeful fifty percent at ten gravities, and only five percent at five gees. I had us accelerating at one gee, which it said had negligible risk and let our repair crews operate more effectively anyway.

Out of thirty crew, we had suffered ten dead. Most of those had been in the two missile bays that had been hit. Everyone who lived was banged up and bruised to some degree, but amazingly there were no major injuries.

The comm tech looked over his shoulder at me. “Sir?” he said questioningly, “I’m getting a call from Mars Station. Governor Clarke, he wants to talk to you. He seems a bit upset, sir.” A small smile. We’d all done a lot to upset the applecart today.

“Well, let’s not keep the governor waiting,” I replied. A moment later, Clarke’s face came up on the screen in front of my chair.

“Nick, I don’t know whether I should hug you or order your arrest,” Clarke said. “You saved our lives with that stunt of yours, but you’ve opened a can of worms for sure this time. I don’t know that this will end well.”

“Had to be done, George,” I replied. “Evil can only succeed when good men do nothing. I couldn’t let them tie my hands, not when it was so obvious where the Accord was going to lead us.”

“I’m not going to argue with the man who just saved my life. I will have to file all the data from the battle in Mars orbit and beam it to the authorities on Earth, but our main computer needs to coalate the data first, and it seems to have taken some minor damage during the evacuation. Someone thought it would be a good idea to yank the RAM chips out and salvage them, I guess. I’m sure they’ll turn up as we shuttle people back, but it might be hours before I can send the message to Earth, and then another hour before they reply from the light lag. If you take my meaning. In the meantime, I’d be glad to render any assistance Mars Station can provide to your crew. You have any wounded over there?”

I smiled. When had George gone from someone I worked with occasionally to a friend I could trust in a bind? “I understand completely, and thanks. We have some scrapes and bruises mostly, but a few fatalities as well, and some serious structural damage. If we can slip in and use your repair bays for a bit, I’ll be in your debt.”

“Debt nothing,” Clarke replied. “We all owe you our lives. Mars owes you its station. And a bunch of people on Earth owe you an apology, although you might have a hard time collecting on that last one. Least we can do. Bring your ship on in, I’ll transmit docking instructions as you get closer.”

Once we had slipped into a repair bay at Mars Station, things proceeded pretty rapidly. I was able to radio our R&D base and update them on the situation. I got reports from them on the Indefatigable at the same time. Chief Acres had taken his crew – and my son! – toward where he suspected the enemy ships had been basing from, out in the asteroid belt. They were radio silent, though, to help keep from being detected. And in any event, it would take a bit for radio signals to get out that far. I knew the three ships that had escaped the battle in Mars orbit were headed back out that way, so I hoped the Inde was up for what they were likely headed into.

I was going to have a bone to pick with both Thomas and Acres when I got a chance. I’d given them orders. Thomas was to stay on the station. Now... Damned if he wasn’t back out in the middle of things. I shook my head to clear it. I had bigger fish to fry. I’d have to hope Acres could keep Thomas safe, for now.

The courier Thomas and I took to the R&D station was still out there. I passed orders to load up new missiles, decoys, and other spare gear we might need for the repairs that would be harder to get at Mars Station. The courier took off at maximum speed shortly after we were in dock.

Clarke was still holding off on letting Earth know about the battle and our part in it. His RAM chips were still listed as ‘missing’. I didn’t know where he’d stashed the things, but I was sure they weren’t going to turn up until he was good and ready. He was taking a big risk, helping us. He could even be tarred with the same brush that was headed my way if he wasn’t careful. But I had to admit we needed the help if we were going to get back into action quickly. I could feel the sand slipping through the hourglass with each passing minute.

“Sir, there’s a contingent from Mars Station at the airlock, requesting entry to the ship,” said Marks, who was helping to monitor the bridge.

“Tell them I’ll be right down,” I wasn’t expecting anyone, which made this visit a potential boon or a potential problem. Hard to tell which, but either way I’d be better off dealing with it directly.

I arrived at the airlock hatch that linked us to the station, and looked at a screen showing the external camera pickups. It was George Clarke, with another dozen or so men with him. I opened the hatch and looked out.

“George, this is a surprise. What’s up?” Why are you at my door with all these people, was the unspoken question.

Clarke had a mischievous grin that took a lot of the tension out of my shoulders. He was up to something, but it was going to be good for us. “Well, Nick, these men here volunteered to stay on the station with me until the other crew escaped. We’re still ferrying folks back up, and we’ve suspended unessential traffic until further notice, so they don’t have a lot to do right now. And since they’re all rather grateful about having a chance to see their families this evening instead of being vaporized, they thought they might be able to return the favor and help with some ship repairs. Before you ask, they’re all mechanic certified – everyone who works on Mars Station goes through the basic courses as a minimum in addition to whatever other work they do.”

“I... Thank you. All of you. We can certainly use the help. I think we have a time crunch right now.” Another dozen people working on the repairs would push things along much faster. “I’ll call the engine room and tell them you’re on your way down. George, care to join me in my cabin for a few minutes?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied.

We walked down to my cabin in silence. I popped the hatch. Things inside were a mess, and I realized I hadn’t been back here since before the fight. The room had been jumbled around a bit, but most things were bolted down well enough to stay put. Had to be, on a ship that accelerated as fast as Defender could. I unstrapped a couple of fold out chairs from the wall and popped them open next to the table, which was permanently fixed to the deck. He gracefully took one of the chairs while I opened up a drawer and pulled out a bottle and a couple of glasses. “Don’t know if you drink much, George, but this is good brandy and I could certainly use a glass at this point.”

“I won’t say no,” he replied. “Earth, or Mars?”

“Earth. Kentucky, actually. I have a small stock I save for special occasions. I think surviving today qualifies.” I set the glasses out, poured, and sat down. The flavor was strong, rich, and smooth. I didn’t indulge often, but believed in buying the best, when I did.

George sipped from his glass. “So, what’s your next move, Nick?” he asked. “You held them off here, but I imagine they won’t just give up and go away.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure yet. We suspect they are basing at least partly from of a repair station out near the asteroids, but that can’t be where they built their ships. We’d have heard about them long since. So even if they are using that station right now, they still have another base of operations. Somewhere. In the long run, that’s what we need to find. Speaking of which, did you catch that drifting ship?”

“No,” he grimaced. “As they were fleeing, the pirates fired a volley of missiles into it and blew it to bits. They didn’t stop to check if there were survivors. They just blew the ship.”

“Trying to keep their identity secret, no doubt,” I said. “Trying to keep us from figuring out where they are from, and what their real goals are. Cold though. That can’t have been good for morale.”

“Nick, I thought you should know... We’ve had long range radar looking for explosions out in space. We picked up what looked like some sort of nuclear explosion, maybe a ship blowing up. Out near Exodus Station, in the belt.” he asked.

I felt my pulse jump a bit. That was one direction Acres had been thinking to take the Indefatigable. No reason to jump top conclusions though, and no reason to give Earth more information than they were already going to get when Clarke inevitably filed his report. He was a good man, and was helping us out a lot. But I knew he had his own people to take care of and his own career to shield. He’d already put himself in enormous danger letting me repair the Defender on his station, and I knew a reckoning would be due when the politicians on Earth got around to him.

“Might be worth checking into,” I finally temporized. I knew he’s seen me pause before answering. He was a skilled enough reader of body language to get more meaning from that pause. And he knew that I knew, but he didn’t bring my omission up.

“I’m glad to help you, Nick. But I do need to send out the report to Earth soon. The newsfeeds are covering the story locally, and I’m sure it’s already reached the Earth feeds. There’s going to be hell to pay if I wait much longer. By the way, have you read the feeds yet?” he asked.

I leaned back and sipped the brandy again. It had been a rough day, and far too long since I’d been able to relax. I still wasn’t sure I could relax yet, either. “No, haven’t had time to even think about news reports. Anything pertinent?”

“Oh, nothing too much. You have a screen here,” he pointed at the screen on the wall next to us. “Humor me, pull the feeds up.” He seemed quietly amused by something, and that roused my curiosity.

“Computer, display on.” The screen flickered to life. “Display news bites for Mars Times, Olympus Today, and Red Globe,” I said, picking three major papers at random. The headlines and a one line blurb for each story scrolled across my screen. I started reading them, and almost choked on my drink.

“Pirates Smashed in Orbit,” I read aloud, then “Battle For Mars Won, Mars CEO Defends Station, Hero of the Battle for Mars Saves Lives...” I coughed. “George, where did they get all this stuff? Battle for Mars, indeed.”

“Well Nick, you were broadcasting in the clear when you talked to the station. Anyone who had the gear could hear you. And a lot of local satellites were able to record and transmit data about the battle. They’re already calling it ‘The Battle for Mars’. And somehow, an anonymous informant leaked that you were the hero of the battle and saved hundreds of lives. Maybe thousands. The Globe’s article mentions that if the pirates could chuck rocks at the station, what would stop them from doing the same to the settlements on the planet itself?”

George looked entirely too smug. “You did this. You were the ‘informant’?” I asked.

“Well of course not. That would be entirely inappropriate for a member of government. I would never do such a thing. If one of my subordinates took it on him or herself to leak news like that to the press, that’s not the same thing as an elected official doing it.” He was openly smiling now. “I thought the insinuation about rocks falling on the surface colonies was particularly brilliant, myself.” Then he sobered instantly. “And not entirely impossible either. I’m sure you’re going to have to leave sooner or later, but I have to admit, I wish you were staying. I feel much better about our security while you’re here.”

“We will need to leave soon. It won’t be long after you transmit that message that Earth will order you to seize the ship and crew. I don’t want to push our luck or your ability to shelter us,” I said. “I appreciate all you’ve done already.”

Clarke stared at me a moment. “No, we appreciate you and all you have done. All you’ve been willing to sacrifice, because you saw what the folly of others would lead to. I will do what I can to help, Nick. Believe it.” He finished his brandy and stood up. “I should get back to my offices. I do have to get that report out to Earth, and they’ll be calling me back soon enough.”

I walked with him to the airlock. As he stepped off the ship back out to the station, he said “Oh, if any of those station employees want to stay on board with you, you might want to keep them. They’re good people, and I’ve personally vetted their security files.” Then he walked away.

We made good use of the time Clarke had bought us. The crew pushed hard and with the extra hands managed to get a lot of work done on the repairs. Most critically, we’d reinforced the structure enough that the ship could safely manage some good acceleration again, and the damaged missile bays were back in business. My courier arrived from the R&D station. That gave us fresh loads of missiles, decoys, and supplies on board. I took the time to personally thank each of the dozen station crew Clarke had brought over with him, and found that six were interested in staying on with me. I accepted. I was used to carefully vetting my crews, and I didn’t know these men at all. But Clarke said he had checked them out. At some point, I needed to start trusting someone outside of my inner circle, and he seemed like a good place to begin.

I was on the bridge when a com message came through from the station. The com ID said that it was Clarke calling, which probably wasn’t good news. I answered immediately.

“Earth ordering us out?” I asked.

“No,” his face looked tense, and I came alert. “Well, that too, but that’s not why I called. Radar has picked up a ship headed for Mars. Coming fast, faster than any manned ships I’ve seen so far. If it’s the pirates, they have something new. I was hoping it might be one of yours.”

“Beam me the radar data and I’ll check it,” I replied. I wasn’t especially worried. A fast ship incoming could be Indefatigable. Probably was, in fact. I hadn’t seen any evidence that the enemy ships had any sort of superior engines. Scan data began pouring into our computer, and the scan matched the Inde’s signature. I connected to one of the Stein satellites again and tried to punch a laser communiqué out to the ship. A minute later, I got a reply. They were still a good ways out, although they were making excellent time.

“This is SSI Indefatigable, Captain Marks reporting, answering the call via secure company laser.” My heart skipped a beat. Marks? Who was Marks? Where were Acres and Thomas?

“Admiral Stein here,” I said into the comm. “Report your ship condition and the status of Captain Acres and his XO.” And why are you in command, I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Secure comms were never completely secure, and I didn’t want to spill information unnecessarily. While I was waiting, the computer gave me information about Marks. A tech sergeant, weapons man. Good record, nothing wrong, and he was on the Inde’s bridge crew.

“Chief Acres is injured. Requesting to dock at Mars Station to pass injured along to hospital care. XO is not on board at this time, I am acting captain,” he replied. He seemed a little stunned and awed by that last. Not surprising. It wasn’t a role he should have had to take. What the hell had happened out there, anyway?

“We only have a skeleton crew,” he continued, “with casualties including two in critical condition. ETA under two hours.” I sent him a confirmation of receipt, then signed off. I had to work hard to keep the worry off my face. I didn’t want the crew seeing it. What happened out there? Where the hell was Thomas? I made an effort to shove the worries aside. Right now I had to get back on the line with Clarke and see how far I could stretch his good will.

Clarke picked up immediately. “So. That ship legit, or enemy?”

“Legit. She’s Indefatigable, a SSI company...cargo ship,” I said, thinking quickly. Well, she was before I had the hull converted over. “She was attacked by pirates, has some injured but managed to escape. I know I need to take Defender out of here, but will the Inde be welcomed to dock? She has some seriously injured crew and is calling a medical emergency.”

“Of course,” Clarke said. “Obviously, you’re a raving maniac with missiles and guns and all that, but the rest of your ships are just merchant vessels, cargo haulers like we’ve seen here for years.” Then, rolling his eyes, he added, “Even if they’re several times faster than anything else in space. New drive, indeed! We’ll take their injured to our medical center, and let them be on their way, or stay as needed. I’ve had word from Earth, and they are saying that anyone with an armed ship should be arrested and confined, their ship impounded. Like I have any way of accomplishing that, but that’s their initial order. Unarmed ships are business as usual.”

“I’ll make sure Inde is aware of what we’ve discussed. Thanks, George. We’ll be undocking shortly, but will stay in the area until the Indefatigable arrives. I want a more complete report from her captain.”

I reopened the beam to the Indefatigable and pressed transmit.

“Mars Station will allow docking for all unarmed ships. Please make sure the Inde will pass station required inspection.” I hoped this Marks would get the idea – cover up the weapons on the ship and mask her armed status. I was pretty sure the station ‘inspection’ would be cursory at best, but better to at least hide the visible arms like the rail gun and antimissile gatlings.

Then I sent, “Defender will stay near the station. Prepare a report on recent actions to deliver to me after your casualties are cared for.”

A minute later, he replied with an affirmative and signed off.

I hit the general intercom. “All hands, this is Admiral Stein. Run the checklist, prepare for station separation and return to open space. Bridge crew to the bridge.”

Separation went very smoothly, and we set ourselves up in a wide orbit, hanging out just past the orbits of Phobos and Deimos. I handed the bridge to my executive officer and headed off the bridge, ostensibly for a nap. I wasn’t going to get much sleep, however much I needed it. Intellectually, I knew I couldn’t get any more information about Thomas until the Inde arrived – too much chance of the wrong people listening in. But now that I had nothing to do but sit and wait, all I had left was my desperate fear my son was dead.

When the bridge called me to inform me that the Inde was here, I all but leapt from my bunk. My eyes felt gritty and sore, and the spot where I bruised my knee during one of the missile impacts ached abysmally. And all that was made worse by the fact that I had not been able to sleep, not even a short nap.

The Inde had arrived in local orbit and was maneuvering for docking with Mars Station. I wanted the details, but I wanted them in person, not over comm lines that could be tapped. I ordered Marks to bring the ship out to link up with Defender as soon as his injured were offloaded. He complied, and it didn’t take him long. It just felt like it did.

I gave the Inde a once over as she came up on us for docking. Overall, she looked whole. They’d rigged some sort of cover for the weapons systems, which probably let them pass for unarmed if you weren’t looking for weapon mounts. There was some damage around the port side airlock. Marks had asked to dock using the starboard lock instead.

“Is Thomas alive?” was the first question I asked as soon as Marks was aboard.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I can give you the full report...?”

An enormous burden lifted with those simple words. Thomas was alive. For a brief moment, nothing else mattered, and I savored the taste of my relief. I brought myself back to the moment as quickly as I could. I had the feeling his report was going to be interesting.

“So Acres was injured in the initial fighting, and my son boarded with more crew to assist,” I said. “They took the enemy ship?” Acres had decades of experience at that sort of work. The idea of my son storming a ship, rifle in hand, was shocking. When had he grown up so much?

“Yes, sir. But not easily. The XO – your son, sir – ordered me to fire missiles into the enemy bridge to take it out. The other enemy just surrendered at that point.”

“Surrendered? Well, that made things easier. Where are these prisoners now?” I asked.

“They’re on the Inde, sir,” he replied. “We’d stowed them so they couldn’t hurt anyone, but they’re bound, gagged, and under guard. Thought you might want them so I didn’t turn them in to Mars Station.” That could cause problems later, I thought. Might be best to turn them over to Clarke and give him a little coup to show his people as a reward for all his help. On the other hand, perhaps I’d be better keeping them – but not aboard a combat ship.

“I’ll call a shuttle. We’ll send them down to corporate headquarters on Mars,” I said. “Quietly. I’d like to keep this information to ourselves for the moment.” Who knew what intel we might be able to coerce from them? I wasn’t about to torture prisoners, no matter who they were. But there were other ways to convince a person to talk.

“Acres was injured badly,” he continued. “The doc said it was get him back to Mars, or he was a goner. Pendelton was even worse. The XO couldn’t see any way to save them and complete their mission at first, but then he had an idea.”

What an idea. My son had taken two thirds of the Inde’s crew and boarded the captured enemy ship. They’d sent the Inde – the better armed and less damaged ship – back to Mars because it was the only ship with the drive speed capable of getting back in time to save the lives of the injured crew. And my son had taken the enemy ship back to the belt station, hoping to fool the pirates there into believing the ship was still on their side. It was a reckless plan, but it might work. Might have worked, I reminded myself. They had set out hours ago and by this time, the plan had probably already either succeeded or failed.

I felt a cold, hard lump in the pit of my stomach. Marks must have seen something dangerous in my eyes, because he paled a bit. I waved my hand reassuringly. “No, not angry, Marks. You did well getting the ship this far. Just worried. There are too many wheels turning here, too much at risk if any one part fails.”

The radio came on right as I was getting up from my seat. My cabin had seemed the best place to have this conference, but I had asked the bridge crew to pipe down any important calls. I keyed the radio to activate it.

“Admiral Stein here,” I said.

“Nick, it’s George. Pull up the news feeds from Earth on your video. We’re getting direct broadcasts from about thirty minutes ago.”

“Why the mystery?” I asked.

“You’ll want to hear this,” was all he would reply. “Mars Station out.”

Annoyed, I popped on the video screen and set it to receive from Earth. Immediately, the image of a huge, smoking crater appeared. I could see fires burning all around the periphery of the impact area, and whatever it was had been massive. I listened intently to the voice over.

“...now have visual coverage of the impact area. What used to be Houston, Texas, is now a smoldering crater in the Earth. We have no reports yet of how many people are dead, but despite the brief evacuation warning, casualties in the millions are anticipated. That makes two strikes inside of the last hour, the first an asteroid strike against the International Space Colony, all but destroying the space station and killing thousands of inhabitants there. We have not yet heard what demands the criminals behind these attacks are making, but we have heard that some government agencies are already in contact with them, negotiating to prevent further attacks. Everyone is asked to please remain calm, and...”

I shut the video feed off. This was as bad as it got. They hit not only the station in orbit around Earth, but the planet itself. A city filled with people, dead. I did some quick math in my head. At the best speeds their ships could make, the attack on Earth could not possibly have been done by the same ships that we fought at Mars. They would still be weeks away. So the attack had been two pronged. I had defeated one branch, but the other had struck a helpless Earth.

The Indefatigable and Defender could be at Earth in days, instead of weeks. And together, we might be able to defeat the enemy ships there. But our other men were still in danger out by the belt station. My son was out there, damn it! An impossible situation. I hesitated. Indecision wasn’t normal for me, but in this case I couldn’t help it. My son had a way of making me second guess myself.

I relaxed with an effort and took a deep breath. Was there really a choice? My son’s fate was already sealed, one way or the other. Either he was able to win through and take the pirate base, or he was already captured...or dead. Even if I went in after him at the best speed our ships could manage, I could not change what had by now already happened.

But I might be able to stop further strikes against the Earth. With our ships on station, we might be able to stop more asteroids from impacting the planet and save millions of lives. The choice was not a palatable one, but it was clear.

I looked at Marks. “You’ve done well so far. I’m confirming your temporary command of the Inde, and transferring over a couple of crew to bring you up to minimum effective crew levels. Drop off those prisoners to Mars Station and then prepare to move out. We’re headed to Earth.”

Chapter 9

Thomas

We had the bridge more or less back in running order. The heaters weren’t working quite right, so it was still a bit chilly – I could see my breath when I exhaled. We left the hatch to the rest of the ship open to get a little warmth into the bridge from elsewhere, but it barely seemed to help. Lots of systems were the same way – working badly, or held together with hope and duct tape. The communications station had been wrecked. One of the missiles had torn it apart as it passed through the ship. The arrays outside the ship were still intact, however, so we jury rigged a new console to give us back basic comm functions.

The key to this mission was in the ship’s main computer, which we were spending considerable effort hacking right now. With a little luck, we’d soon have the codes and passwords needed to dock at the captured base. If not, we’d have to improvise something. Weapons were still working, and the weapon station was manned with one battery of missiles ready to fire. We’d almost gotten the second missile line back up. My explosives had really messed up the line, but we were slowly making progress.

So here I was on the chilly bridge of a captured ship, heading to their base. We’d take the place back, rescue any hostages they had at the site, and remove their ability to use it as a base of operations. If we succeeded, it would cripple the pirates’ activity in the area. It seemed worth the risk.

In the back of my head, I worried that I was just doing this in the hopes of rescuing Keladry. I tried to rationalize my way around that. Yes, I hoped to find her. That wasn’t why I was doing this. We had a shot at surprising them right now, but that wouldn’t last for long. The Indefatigable had the speed to get our dying crew members back to Mars, hopefully in time for surgeons there to save their lives. This ship didn’t. It was slower than the Inde even if it hadn’t been smashed up. There was no way it could have gotten Acres back in time.

On the other hand, it was the ideal choice for the deception I had planned.

The captain of this ship had been named Choi, from some Asian ethnic background or other. His body was presumably mixed into the pasty mess left on the bridge by the SABOT rounds. There wasn’t enough left of any of the bridge crew to make identifications, or even to count them. Enough left to make myself and some of the rest of my crew almost retch in our suits, though. The cleanup was a low point in a day already filled with sensory overload. No rest for the wicked. This ship would be expected to report back soon, and we had to meet their expectations.

I was pretty sure there were other pirates back on the repair station ahead of us. That’s where this ship had come from. The story we would tell is that the ship we tried to board was an armed ship – the station radar would surely have spotted that anyway. After ‘we’ had grappled the ship, it fired on the second ship, blowing it apart. Then while the crew kept us from boarding, they fired SABOT missiles at ‘us’, killing the captain and bridge crew. But in the story we’d constructed, the Indefatigable’s crew was unable to board, and instead broke off and ran for home after we had fired missiles back at them. Then we returned to the base as soon as we had made some essential repairs.

The story ought to hold. It would nearly match the radar data, anyway. Tracking the number of missile impacts and which were launched by whom and hit whom would have been tough when the two ships were docked against each other. So the story that the Inde ran because it had taken hits should be plausible. We’d made emergency repairs and then returned to base.

With luck the story would be enough to let us get close to the station, maybe even dock with it. Of course, what we did then was going to depend on a lot of factors. How many other ships were there? How many pirates? Were there hostages? Lots of questions, not a lot of answers. Yet. And way too many ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds’ in this plan for my taste. It was the best I could do just then.

When we were still a good distance out, the main ship’s computer finally cracked under the pressure we were applying, and disgorged some of its contents. The nav chip melted itself down completely. Some sort of safety precaution against being cracked. There was no way we were going to get a record of where the ship had been, which was critical information. I remembered what Acres had said about the pirates having another base, somewhere. That was what we needed to find, and the failsafe had burned out the chip which might have given us a clue.

But the comm unit was still OK, and contained all their most recent frequency and code information. I had one of our techs plug that data into the new comm computer we installed. They’d be calling us soon enough. Best we be able to talk to them.

Meantime, I busied myself reading more of the captain’s log. He’d been pretty reticent in his writing. Probably intentionally avoiding too much detail, since he was involved in criminal actions. I compared it to my own notes that I’d been writing on our journey and wondered if perhaps I should have been more circumspect. He used code words for various operations, but as near as I could tell, the captain had been hired on Earth for the job and paid an extremely handsome sum. I’d already seen the enemy was well funded; this was just another example. He’d been involved in destroying two mining colonies entirely and in helping to seize the repair station we were headed to right now. He wrote that he was upset about being left there when ‘the fleet’ was sent out to ‘other targets’. I felt the plural was ominous as it implied that the ships Dad had fought at Mars were likely not the only ones.

I couldn’t really get a feel for the total number of ships they had, but in addition to the ‘fleet’ sent out earlier, he expressed some pride that his ship had been sent out to intercept multiple other ships as they tried to reach the Exodus repair station or other bases in the area. His ship was so honored, instead of the ‘other ships’. What I was hoping to see, and didn’t, was an idea of just how many ships the enemy had. Choi’s notes were unhelpful.

We got our first radio signal from Exodus station as we were beginning our deceleration. I had our comm tech send the appropriate coded reply to their message. We must have gotten it right because the next thing I saw was a craggy, gaunt man’s face staring out of our main screen at me. He was of some sort of Amer-European descent. Older; he had white hair with just the faintest remnants of pepper, and a receding hairline. He looked at me with suspicious eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re not Captain Choi. What happened out there?”

Never let them see you sweat, right? Easier said than done. If I didn’t play this just right, the best case scenario was that we’d fail to gain access to the base. The more likely result would be this guy would send whatever other ships he had available after us and blow us to bits. The ship I was flying in wasn’t going to outrun or outgun anything, damaged as it was.

No pressure.

“Captain Choi had a fatal encounter with a missile. I took command after the bridge was hit, managed to restore basic function to the ship, and brought her back here for repairs. We took a beating out there.” I said. Then, I took a chance and added, “I thought we were supposed to be the only ships out here with missiles?”

The face in the vidscreen scowled. “Our forces attacking Mars have just reported that they ran into an armed ship. It must be the same one. There can’t very well be two of them. We’ll compare your data readings to theirs when they arrive in a few hours, but I expect we’ll see it’s the same ship. It’s that lunatic, Stein. He’s loaded missiles on a personal vessel and decided to tilt at windmills for a bit. Irrelevant to the main operation.”

I tried to school my face into an angry grimace. “We should have been warned, even so. We should have...”

He cut me off. “You should do what you’re told. If you’d killed that ship instead of letting it get away, we’d have solved the problem. Would even have been worth losing the Stingray for that.” I realized he was probably talking about the other ship that had been sent with this one. “Stein killed three ships and injured two more from the Mars strike force. We’ve sent the entire rest of the active fleet to reinforce the Earth strike force, as well as warn them of the danger. If Stein shows up, they’ll be ready.”

“Should be enough to take out any one ship,” I agreed. My mind was churning through all the data I’d just heard, making connections and trying to plot the best course through this minefield. They were striking Earth! It seemed impossibly audacious, but I remembered what my father had said about how defenseless Earth really was.

“Well,” he seemed a bit less suspicious now. “You’ll bring your ship in next to the ones being refit for fighting. Docking berth three. I’ll want to debrief you in my office after you arrive. If I like what I hear, perhaps you’ll be allowed to keep command of that ship. Exodus Station out.” With that, the signal disconnected.

Exodus Repair Station was coming into view now. I’d been out here before a few times on business trips with Dad. It was a vital waypoint for ships out here in the outer edge of the main traffic patterns of the solar system. The station was built onto an old asteroid that had been hollowed out by the mining process, stripped of precious iron, nickel, and other metals needed for industry in Earth and Mars orbit. What was left over was a hulk of rock barely worth mining. But it had made for an excellent place to stow ships that were in need of repair work. A bit more hollowing left a rock shell as sturdy as the best man made girder and beam array at a fraction of the cost. The rest of the station was then built onto and extending from that rock in concentric rings, and then the entire mess was given a spin to create artificial gravity.

The result was a nearly zero gee environment inside the shell with a huge hollow that ships could fly up into from ‘underneath’. The inner ring built onto the outside of the shell was mostly part of the repair process – parts and repair supplies for the hangar just inside the shell. The next ring out was living quarters, comfortable light gravity environments for people who spent most of their working hours in zero gravity. The outermost ring was offices and workstations as well as guest quarters. Here the gravity was about Mars normal, which was a lot more comfortable to people used to being planet bound.

We changed our approach to nose into the hangar area. I couldn’t see any other ships out and about on our near radar. “Radar, keep an eye out for anything unusual. Weapons, scan the station,” I said softly. “Find me heat signature concentrations, if you can.” The bridge crew got to work, and I sat quietly, watching Exodus get larger and larger on my screen.

Radar reported back first. “Scans of the area show no ships in flight. If they’re powered down, we might not see them. But otherwise, it looks like we’re alone out here. I did see an unknown number of ion trails that left the area not too long ago. Sounds like our friend from the vid screen was telling the truth about shipping out the other vessels.”

“Well, that’s one worry away then,” I replied jauntily. “Only about a hundred left to deal with!” I got a few chuckles for my trouble.

“Got heat signatures all over the station, sir,” broke in my weapons tech. “Hard to count them with this gear. Some of these,” he pointed at the red blobs all over a schematic of the station, “may just be mechanical heat from something. This one is worth looking at, though.” It was a particularly large blob of red, which meant some sort of heat source. And it was staying pretty still. Most noteworthy, it was in a conference center on the outer ring. It almost certainly wasn’t machinery, not where it was, not that large. It’s possible the pirates were all having a big meeting, but it seemed more likely those would be the hostages. That would represent both a complication and an opportunity.

The good news, I thought to myself as we slowly slipped into the rock shell of the hangar, was that they were unlikely to suspect who we really were. What we were doing was so crazy that it probably didn’t even register on their threat assessments. The bad news, of course, is that they weren’t going to suspect it precisely because it was an almost suicidal stunt to try.

Coming up into the hangars, the computer plotted the best course to berth three. Berths one and two were occupied by other ships. By the looks of them, they were merchant vessels being converted over. I figured them to be recently captured ships, based on the telltale scorch marks of an explosion on the nose of one of them, and patches that looked like SABOT repairs on the other. And mostly finished with the conversion, from the looks of it. They were both already sporting the dual missile bays typical of the pirate’s modified vessels.

With a loud clang, we came to rest at the dock. Now we were at the tricky part. The threads of our story would start coming unraveled as soon as those doors opened. We needed to act fast.

I tabbed the intercom. “All crew, meet me at the main lock, bring your gear. Ready the big package.”

The gear was our armor and guns, already issued to everyone we had with us. I had brought a total of twenty crew from the Inde over here, leaving her with a skeleton crew, but hopefully giving us the muscle we needed to win here.

The package was a special surprise I had set up for the pirates while we were on the way here.

Our ship’s engines used fission reactors to generate power. That power accelerated ions out the back of the ship. Basically, the way the drives work was that ionized particles were shot out of the ship at speeds that were a high percent of the speed of light, using high powered electromagnets for the acceleration. All that boost requires a lot of energy, and while people had been working on a good fusion solution for over a century, no one had really solved all the problems with it yet. That was at the heart of the importance of Mars to humanity – the red planet held an abundance of fissionable materials, vital to energy production all around the system, from ships to cities.

Anyway, today’s fission engines used much more reliable coolant systems than they once had. Instead of using water, they used hydrogen. Hydrogen was common in space, easy and cheap to gather, and could be cooled by using the cold of space as a heat sink. So liquid hydrogen was used as the primary coolant for our engines, and ships carried a lot of the stuff.

Liquid hydrogen had a few other interesting features. It expands into gas rapidly when warmed. And that gas, in an oxygen rich environment, was highly flammable.

We were expecting company dockside. They were letting us dock, but that was no guarantee they had bought our story. The package was there in case we had an armed reception party. Which, judging by the external cameras, we did.

“Open up and have your captain report for debriefing. The rest of you, stand to for inspection of the ship!” came the order from outside. I sighed. There were at least twenty armed men out there. It had to be a good chunk of the total compliment of the pirates left on the station. Or so I hoped. If I was wrong, we were in a lot more trouble.

My crew was gathered round the package, just inside the airlock. They all backed away from the thing and took cover. Everybody knew the scoop – nobody had to be told to get clear. I had a small, jury rigged remote in my hand with a single button. I pressed it.

Several things happened in a very fast sequence. First, our air lock over rode the safety features built into it. Both doors opened at once, which should have been impossible. Thank you, Dad, for always hiring the best techy geeks out there. The ship was somewhat more pressurized than the station, so there was an immediate rush of wind as pressure kicked out of the ship through the airlock. Nothing like a sudden thirty mile an hour wind to surprise armed guards standing outside your ship.

Less than a second after that, a small quantity of explosive triggered on the nozzle end of a large liquid hydrogen storage tank. The amount of explosive had been tricky to get right – because blowing up the entire tank while it was still on the ship would have blown us all to bits. Benson hadn’t been messing around when he said he could do the job, though. The explosion was small, more of a ‘pop’ than a ‘bang’. The blast hardly moved the big tank. But almost instantly the immense pressure in the tank forced hydrogen out the gaping hole where the nozzle had been. The tank lifted into the air, blasted forward by the hydrogen venting from the hole. It flew out of the ship. It slammed into an armed pirate who was standing in the doorway with a wet thwack, the impact tossing him into the air. It continued on, spraying liquid hydrogen all around the small unloading bay just outside our air lock.

Next, the airlock seals reset themselves and slammed down in emergency seal mode, blast doors slipping into place.

Last, an incendiary grenade duct taped to the hydrogen tank was ignited.

It burned very briefly before cutting through the side of the tank, which was still skittering around the room spewing liquid that was about negative two hundred fifty something degrees Celsius all over the armed men in the room. The tank had held a couple hundred kilos of hydrogen. It still had about half that when the grenade finished melting through the tank wall and dropped into the liquid inside, instantly cooking it to gas and igniting it.

The resulting explosion shook the ship and trashed the bay outside our doors, but the blast doors were made of solid stuff, and they held. There wasn’t much left of the pirates outside.

We wasted no time. Cycling the lock several times to preserve the atmosphere in the ship, we shuffled crew out into the still smoldering bay in groups of four. Sixteen of us went out there, leaving only four to guard the ship. The rest of us went looking for trouble.

The first step was to try to get to that big heat spot we thought was where they were holding the hostages. This entire mission would turn into a disaster if they could threaten the hostages, use them against us. We moved as a unit straight down the corridor to the nearest outward bound shaft. We needed to get to the outer ring where that large heat signature had been. I had us led by the four survivors of what I had started to think of as the Chief’s marines – his handpicked tatical squad. I walked in the middle of the pack, where I could retain command well.

We didn’t see anyone on the way to the shaft, not a one. It was a long way down, and even though the gravity would start off slow, it would go up to about two third Earth by the time we reached the bottom. I hit the call button for the elevator, but the display said it was all the way on the bottom and was going to take a while to get to us.

“We do not have time for this,” I growled. “Follow me.”

Then I jumped over the edge.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. I remembered riding the elevator up when I was there as a kid and having someone almost land on me from above. The elevator platform had no roof and by the time it was halfway up the shaft, the spin was so slow that the artificial gravity was minimal.

A minute later, I landed on the platform, armored feet hitting with a clang. I turned to the control panel and stopped the upward movement.

Behind me, the crew started landing, one after another. They jumped out of the way as they landed, hugging the walls to open space for the next guy.

“What the hell was that, sir?” one of them asked. But he was laughing. They all were.

“Saved us two minutes travel time,” I replied, grinning back. Then, more soberly, “And every second counts for those prisoners. We have to get there before the enemy can react.” I set the platform to descend again.

We met no interference on our way down, but the door to the conference room was sealed. Someone on the other side had realized something was up, and was thinking. That could be bad for us.

I ran up to the door and started pounding on it. We had our suits on, but there was air here. I popped back my faceplate and started shouting. After a few moments, I heard a tinny voice on the other side say “Who the hell is it?” He sounded nervous, which was good, and just the fact he asked meant that there were no video pickups where he was, or at least he wasn’t thinking about using them.

“It me, it’s John, they blew the bay, they’re coming down here! Let me in, fast!” I hollered back.

“No way, man, password first,” came the reply back.

“Running password is dynasty!” I shouted back. At least, that’s what it had been when we ripped it from the computer databases on the ship we took. “Hurry, they’re coming!”

“OK man, hold on,” he said. I heard beeps on the other side, then servos engaging to lift the heavy door. I snapped my faceplate down and rifle up in two smooth motions as the blast door lifted, and then the regular doors snapped open to either side. The man I had been talking to was standing just inside the door and off to my left. He had time to form his mouth into a silent O before I fired three rounds through his head. I moved forward into the room, scanning for more targets.

It felt oddly like shooting targets back on Earth. I was on the Harvard Shooting Team. Dad was never above bribing me to get his way – he promised me Spring Break anywhere on Earth I wanted to go if I joined the team and we kicked Yale’s ass. I worked daily for months to qualify and then longer after. I took my vacation in the Caribbean, sailing from island to island on a boat I had my father rent. It was as close as I could get to being on a ship in space while I was stuck on Earth. I think my Dad somehow got that, because he never even once complained about the expense.

I didn’t watch the body fall. Maybe I didn’t want to see that it was a person, not a popup target. I just kept moving.

I could feel movement behind me – the men from the Chief’s team, practiced at this sort of maneuver, pressing on into the room. There were three other pirates in sight. I fired a single round at one, dropping him. One of my men took down another as he was turning around. The last enemy reacted faster, pulling the classic ‘grab a hostage as a shield’ move that you see in so many video dramas. He had a middle-aged woman in a red shipsuit in front of him, a pistol held to her head.

My men hesitated. I didn’t. I had a good field of fire, dialed my rifle to armor piercing rounds, and took the shot. It slammed into the hostage’s right shoulder, went right through, and then blew through the pirate’s sternum and out his back. They both fell backwards with the force of the impact, and then the marines were there, kicking the gun away from him and putting pressure on his hostage’s wound.

Just like that, it was over. And I felt sick, thick nausea welling its way up my throat. My hands shook, and I could feel cold sweat popping out on my brow. That round I just fired could have killed the woman, but I hadn’t paused to consider that. I’d just fired. I got my helmet off in time to retch behind a sofa instead of into a closed space suit. I was starting to feel a bit better, if still shaky, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Sergeant Jones, one of the Chief’s marines. He had a paternal look on his face, but I was grateful to see that he looked more concerned than patronizing. I was pretty sure that throwing up on the furniture was not on the list of things daring space captains were supposed to do.

“You OK, sir?” he asked.

“Yes, I think so. Sorry about...that,” I waved errantly at the mess I had made.

“No worries, sir. First time?”

“Second,” I said, but realized that in the fight to seize the ship, I hadn’t really fired many rounds, and had never really seen the few targets I’d shot at. “No, first time like this, I guess.”

He nodded. “Normal reaction. You did well, sir. We’ve sealed the room again, and the medic is looking over that injured civ. Sounds like she’s going to be fine.”

“Thanks,” I said. What else was I supposed to say? I had seen the shot. I knew I could make the shot and I took it. But hell, I’d missed before. If the pirate had moved even a little, I could have killed her. I swallowed hard. Sometimes, knowing which call to make was hard.

“What are your orders, sir?” Jones asked.

I felt my lips draw into a grim line. “Let’s clean the rats out of this warren.”

Chapter 10

Thomas

Two hours later, it was finished. We had three prisoners and had accounted for twenty two dead pirates, not counting the twenty I’d immolated in the bay. I wasn’t sure what exactly to do with the prisoners, but killing them out of hand seemed unjust. The man I shot while he held the hostage was not among the prisoners. He hadn’t survived. I tried to explore my feelings about his death, and the man who I had tricked into opening the door, and the ones I had ordered burned to death in the hangar. I was curiously numb to their deaths. I thought I should probably feel something, but there was nothing. Maybe I would later, or maybe their deaths were too small after ordering the deaths of so many others in the fighting. Or maybe in my gut I just felt like they had brought it on themselves.

Time would tell.

For now, I was headed back to the conference room. The hostages were all still there, being guarded by people from my crew. I hadn’t had a chance to address them yet, and they were probably terrified.

There were thirty in all. I had my medic go through them while the rest of us were busy clearing out pirates, and they seemed OK. While there were a lot of bruises to go around, and they were all pretty hungry, the pirates as a whole seemed to have been taking fairly decent care of them. Better than I had feared, anyway.

“Sir.” It was Jones. From the look on his face, it was bad news. I knew the good luck couldn’t hold forever, but I had been hoping.

“What’s up?” I asked.

He handed me a tablet. There was already a video queued up. I pressed the start button with my finger, and it began playing a recorded news stream – from Earth. My teeth ground together in frustration as I watched newscasters report in vivid detail the death of three major cities. The pirates were hammering the planet with asteroids. The space station was destroyed, the pathetic defense fleet obliterated, and now they were just picking off cities until the planet gave up. It was too much to take in. Millions dead. Tens of millions, maybe? The news wasn’t even trying to get a death toll, and I had a feeling the enemy was just getting warmed up.

“Shit,” I said. “We have to get moving.”

“Aye, sir. Also, radar picked up the enemy ships which survived the tussle with your father. They’re about two hours out.”

I thought furiously. Dad would have gotten this information already. He’d be acting on it, and with Defender and the Inde, he’d get there fast. We didn’t have anything like his speed, and we were further away. It was going to take us a long while to get back to Earth where we could support him.

That wouldn’t stop him from going in.

The sooner we got going, the better for everyone involved.

“Thanks, Jones,” I said, handing him back the tablet. “Pass the word. We’re leaving within the hour.”

“Aye, sir,” he said. His hand flashed a salute before he left me. I wasn’t used to that – not at all. Ship crews don’t salute one another. It was a military thing, and there was no military in space – had been no military in space, anyway. I took the gesture as the compliment I felt it was intended.

I walked back into the conference center, intending to get people up and moving. But things were a lot livelier than the last time I was there. When we first arrived, the hostages were frankly scared shitless. And who could blame them? They’d been prisoners for days, captured and then held by armed men. Then we busted in and started shooting the place up. It can’t have been fun for them. When I left the room, they were sitting huddled on the floor. Now they were standing in clusters and arguing amongst themselves.

And arguing with my crew. I frowned. This could get ugly fast. I only had sixteen men on the station. We’d gotten crazy lucky and lost no one taking the station. But we’d rescued forty-four prisoners. And although they’d been frightened of us when we first came in through the door shooting, they seemed to have decided we were not in league with the pirates and were not going to shoot them. They’d stopped being afraid and started being angry instead.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” I said, trying to quiet the loud buzz in the room. No such luck. “Quiet please!” I said, louder. Still nothing. I sighed, and flipped my rifle to frangible rounds before firing one round into the air. What’s the use of having a rifle if you can’t fire it to shut up a gaggle of spacers?

The room went dead quiet.

“That’s better,” I said.

“What’s the meaning of this?” one man demanded.

“All of you were taken prisoner by these pirates, yes?” I asked. I didn’t want for an answer, just barreled on. “We’re the rescue. We will get you all back to secure space.”

“Who are you people?” the same man asked.

“I know him,” called one voice from the back. “He’s from our company. The Old Man’s son.”

I spotted the speaker. James Kessler, one of Dad’s older employees. He’d captained our ships since I was barely toddling around. The man next to him was also a Stein Space Industries employee, Sam Levine. The two had actually been with me on my apprentice cruise, and although we’d had few opportunities to get together lately, we’d still stayed in touch over the years.

I nodded, resisting the urge to wave hello. “That’s me,” I said. “Thomas Stein. Look, this fight is bigger than it looks. While had you locked up, they tried to hit Mars – and failed, thanks to my father. And they’ve sent ships at Earth as well. They’re throwing rocks from space, blowing up cities with kinetic strikes.” There were a few gasps at that, and someone started crying.

“Now, there’s three ships here at this station. The pirates have started converting them over to carry weapons. We’re taking those ships and bringing them into the fight.”

“You can’t take our property,” the man who’d spoken before growled. “I’ll sue!”

“I’ll return you to someplace more safe than here as quickly as I can,” I said. “But we are taking those ships.”

He came barreling up to the front of the crowd. I saw some of my men tighten grips of rifles and shift their stance a little, but I waved them down. They relaxed. A little.

“I will be taking my ship back. You have no right to stop me,” he said, getting up in my face.

“You asshole. People are dying,” I said, my voice rising with each word. “You think I give two shits about your lawsuit? I am captain of an armed vessel. What’s the penalty for that?”

I let the words sink in for a moment. Everyone knew the sentence for that: death.

I grabbed his collar. “If that isn’t stopping me,” I hissed, “what makes you think I will hesitate to remove any other obstacles that might slow me from saving our homeworld?”

I let him go, and he went stumbling back. He’d gone pretty pale. I guess I had maybe overdone it a bit, but I was pissed.

“I am going to go inspect those other ships and begin implementing evacuation plans. There are three enemy ships only hours away from this station, and we want to be long gone before they arrive. I’d ask everyone to sit tight a little longer and we’ll get you safely away from here.”

I turned to leave the room. That was when I saw her.

Keladry hadn’t changed – and had, at the same time. I mean, I’d know her face anywhere. I’d dreamt of her enough nights, trapped in the gravity well Dad sentenced me to down on Earth. I’d wondered what happened to her. I’d longed to write, to get some sort of message through. But if Dad had learned I’d made any sort of contact, that would have been it – she’d have lost her career. I didn’t doubt my father’s resolve.

Her face. Her curls. Looking at her across the room, I could remember how she smelled. She was here. Of course she was here; she’d been taken by the pirates. I’d been worried to death about her back when I’d first heard. But I’d been so busy retaking the station here that I hadn’t even checked the prisoner list to see if she’d been among them. I felt a sudden pang of guilt. Why hadn’t I gone looking for her right away? I took a hesitant step forward, wanting to say something, anything, to close the gap between us that the years had created.

She turned her back, and walked into the crowd. I lost sight of her.

It hurt. Maybe as much as the original separation, it hurt. Because I’d always had at least some lingering hope that maybe there was still something there, something we could save in spite of my father. But I guessed there just wasn’t. With a force of will, I pushed her from my thoughts. I didn’t have time for this right now. My eyes were a little damp, and I blinked twice to clear my vision. No tears. Not right now, anyway. I had too much counting on me not screwing up. If I fumbled the ball now because of Kel, then Dad would have been right all along.

I left the room with a few of my crew in tow. The rest remained behind to protect the folks we had rescued, from each other as much as anything else at this point. I had to shake my head. I knew people could be panicky creatures, but it seemed a little surreal to argue over ship ownership when millions of lives were at risk.

We went back to the hangar to check out the other two ships. Both had been converted, at least partly. The first was another basic cargo ship like the one I had captured, much like the hull the Indefatigable had been before the heavy drive modifications. The pirates added two missile bays onto the ship. According to the telltales on the missile control console they’d installed on the bridge, both bays were functioning for a total of six launch tubes. It looked like they’d been planning to add some missile defense rockets as well, but hadn’t done so yet. No time now, which was a pity.

The other ship was much larger. “They must have about wet themselves when they captured this one,” I muttered to myself. It was an SSI vessel, one of our largest: the Constellation. Modern cargo ship design was pretty basic. You had a long spindle with a command bridge and crew berths on one end, the main drive on the other, and a tube down the middle. Ships had sets of clamps in the middle of the spindle to which you would attach a ring or disk for carrying crew or passengers or large hauling units for carrying cargo. The hauling units and rings were all standardized, so a unit would fit just about any ship.

Most ships only had one set of clamps. All of the pirates’ standard vessels were like that, and so was the Inde. Some much larger ships had room for two or three sets of clamps, and a very few ships had been built with four sets to haul truly huge loads. The second captive ship was one of those.

The pirate weaponry system was elegant. They simply took off the cargo containers and clamped on missile units they had prefabricated elsewhere. The station was full of a pile of component modules for the missile units, so they had hauled a bunch of them out here. Obviously planning to beef up their fleet at the expense of cargo vessels they had captured.

The SSI Constellation was an amazing sight. If any ship had a prayer of standing up to the likes of the Defender, it would have been this one. It had one crew ring, so the ship could carry a much bigger crew compliment than most. That had been retrofitted with a number of antimissile rocket launchers. The other three rings had been filled out with missile pods, six in total, for a launch capability of eighteen tubes.

It was love at first sight. I had my new flagship. It was even legal since I was simply recovering Stein property. I had to smile at the irony of worrying about property legalities when flying an armed ship meant a mandatory death penalty. I pushed the thought out of my head. One thing at a time.

Chapter 11

Thomas

I’d already decided to take command of the Constellation. But that still left me in a bind – I needed two more experienced captains who were willing to follow me into battle commanding the other two ships. I had a decent array of crew to choose from here – but less experienced hands. And I didn’t have a lot of time.

One came to mind, for sure: James Kessler. He’d stood up for me, back there in the conference room. And he’d been with Dad for a long time. I called him in.

“Thom,” he said as he came into the small room I’d set aside for our meeting. “You’ve come a long way.”

“A lot’s happened.”

He looked up at the ceiling – all transparent, one huge high-density window. I picked this room for a reason: if you looked up here, you could see the hangar bays. Constellation sat dead center with the other two ships flanking her. It was an impressive sight.

I was counting on that.

“I’m guessing that you’re looking for crew for those other ships. Am I right?”

“Crew,” I replied. “And captains.”

He sat down next to me. “Of course, I’ll help. Is it as bad as you said, before?”

I exhaled a deep breath and relaxed a little. If I could get James on board, then I was sure I could find someone else to run the third ship. “Probably worse. Dad’s made Earth by now and is fighting a huge fleet with only two ships. I don’t know what’s happening there, except that I doubt it’s good.”

He frowned. “Your father’s a good man. Don’t count him out of the fight just because he’s outnumbered.”

“I’m not. But the sooner we get there, the better. There’s more: multiple enemy ships headed for this station. Less than two hours out.”

James’s eyebrows raised. “Time to get moving then. Those ships ready to go?”

I nodded.

“Who’s your third captain?” he asked.

I hesitated. That was the question, wasn’t it? “I thought you might have some suggestions? I was thinking Sam, maybe.”

“Sam served with me that last cruise. Good man, but captain? For an easy shipping run, maybe. For this? No. He hasn’t the seasoning for it, not yet.” James replied.

I looked down at my tablet where I had a list of the prisoners’ names, and some basic information about their shipping background. Sam had seemed such an obvious choice to me, but I realized he was only obvious because he was a known factor. I trusted James on this one – I’d have to find someone else.

James looked upwards again, and I could see the longing in his eyes. After a long moment, he looked back down at me. “I’m not getting my ship back for this, am I?” he asked.

“Constellation was yours?”

He nodded.

I gave him a wry smile. “I would, James. You’ve got far more experience as a captain than I do, but...”

He waved me off at that point. “But you’ve commanded a ship in a space battle before. Something I can’t claim. I get it.” He sighed. “Take care of her then. I want her back in one piece!”

“I’ll do my best,” I said. “Now, about that third captain?”

“I think our best bet is Owains.”

“Kel?” The idea stopped me in my tracks and set my pulse racing. I knew my shock was showing on my face, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“Oh, Thom, I’m sure she’s over...that...” James was grinning with good humor now. Kel and I must have been the scuttlebutt for the entire SSI fleet for months after our mandated breakup.

“I’m not so sure,” I growled.

“Get over yourself,” he said, all the humor gone in an instant. “Nobody has time for that crap. Kel was the Connie’s pilot for our run out here, and she’s worked with me a bit off and on over the years. She’s one of the best pilots SSI has – maybe the best pilot in space. No idea why she’s never taken a command, but it’s certainly not for lack of skill. She might turn out to be the best combat captain you have. Her feel for 3D movement dynamics is incredible.”

“I’ll try. But I don’t think she’s as over ‘us’ as you think.” I told him. I briefly went over seeing her in the conference room, and her reaction.

He grimaced. “I don’t know what she’s thinking, Thomas. But if you want the best person in that third chair, she’s the woman you want.”

This was bigger than us. James was right. There was too much at stake for me to put anyone but our best in command of these ships. “I’ll speak to her then. In the meantime, circulate with the rest of the crews we freed. See how many of them are willing to sign on to help in the fight. I’m not counting on a lot of them joining us, but even a few will help us out.”

“I’ll do that. How long we have?” he asked.

“I plan to be gone from here in about thirty minutes,” I said. “Ask Kel to join me, please?”

“I will,” James said. On his way out, over his shoulder, he called out, “Good luck!”

I let out a long sigh. “Thanks,” I said to the empty room.

I rose from my seat as she entered the room. Keladry Owains – I wondered if the woman she’d become was much like the girl I’d known all those years ago? Her eyes flashed, which made me suck in my breath a little. I was guessing yes. Which was probably a good thing for all of us right now because Kel had never been anything but tough as nails. We needed that.

I ground down my personal feelings, bottling them up. No time for that, right now. Time to be professional.

“Thanks for coming so quickly,” I said.

“James filled me in, a little. Time sounds like it's in short supply,” she replied.

Hearing her voice made my heart do something awkward in my chest.

“I need a captain,” I said, keeping it short and to the point.

She quirked an eyebrow. “And you want me? I’ve never captained a ship.”

“James says it’s not for lack of experience.”

“Oh? High praise, from him. He’s a good captain,” she said.

I sat back down. “He’s the other one. But we have three ships,” I said. I pointed upward at the window. “The one on the right, there? That one would be yours.”

“Looks a little banged up,” she said.

“My fault,” I said, grinning. I couldn’t help it. Being with her again – it just felt so natural.

“You always did have a knack for making a mess,” Kel said.

She was standing close enough that I could smell her now. The scent hadn’t changed, or if it had, it was still close enough to seem the same to my memory. Her face was a little older, but it was still the same face.

“I missed you, Kel.” As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. That wasn’t the cool, professional demeanor I’d wanted to present!

She sighed and looked away. “I’m a big girl now, Thom. It’s been a long time. But I’m still a bit raw over the deal I got. You know I spent two years on boring out-system runs? Two years of doing nothing, Thom.”

I could see how much that had hurt her. It was etched there on her face. For a moment I regretted putting us both through all this. It was a lot of pain to dredge up after all these years. But as much as it hurt to be around her, I found myself loving every moment of it. Wishing she would stay here longer, even if it hurt. I framed my reply as carefully as I could.

“I had no idea.” I frowned. I had been in school all those years, and when Harvard wasn’t in session I was in training with Chief Acres or one of Dad’s other friends. He’d kept me as far from her as possible – and it seemed he’d also kept her as far from me as he could. “I’m sorry. My father...”

“Is still an asshole,” she said, turning to me. She had a smile on. “But let’s go bail him out of this latest shitstorm, shall we?”

“So you’re in?” I asked, standing up. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, all of a sudden. I had an urge to push her away, to tell her to go someplace safe. Suddenly I understood my Dad’s desire to see me kept out of the line of fire until all this was over.

“How could I miss this?” she asked, shrugging.

“Great!” I said. “Your ship still needs a name. Any ideas?”

She made a face. “How about a proper ship name? Never understood the Brit need to name ships after some adjective. How about...” she thought a moment, then said “Aisling?”

I cocked my head a bit and raised an eyebrow.

She glared back. “Perfectly good wet ship name from Ireland in the late twentieth,” she said.

“Your ship. You name her,” I said. “Now I have to try to convince James to go with something other than ‘Enterprise’.”

We both chuckled, then a long silence dropped. I looked up and she was staring at me. I looked back, our eyes met, and all those years seemed to tumble away in an instant. The rush of emotion was overwhelming, and I blinked to stop my eyes from tearing. When I opened my eyes again, she had looked away.

I spoke again to break the quiet, “OK, go get Aisling ready for departure. We leave within the half hour.”

We loaded every missile we could store, and packed the rescued hostages into the three ships. The station was nowhere near stripped bare, but we couldn’t leave it for the pirates. Instead, we left them a surprise. Something extra special in case they tried to dock.

We pulled out just in time. As our three ships picked up speed, pouring on the best acceleration they could handle to push us away from the station, the three pirate ships came into missile range. One of the pirates on the station had obviously gotten some sort of message away, because the enemy ships didn’t bother trying to radio to us. They just opened fire.

Luckily, we were already nearly out of range, and boosting hard. Very few of the missiles managed to reach us at all, and Constellation’s antimissile fire easily handled the few that threatened us.

I was ensconced in the Connie’s bridge. It was a well-appointed command center with scans better than any ship I had captained, and room for a crew of six plus the captain in the bridge. In theory, most of the ship could be run from there. The automation was superb, state of the art. In practice, we needed crews in the engine room to keep things running smoothly, and down in the missile bays to ensure they ran well. But it was still less crew than one might have thought a ship this size needed, which was a good thing – we were going to be understaffed once we dropped our noncombatant passengers off.

“Return fire. Give them something to think about – one volley, all bays, nuke missiles,” I said.

“Aye sir,” replied my weapons tech – one of the old crew from the Indefatigable, serving here with me still. He paused, then said, “Sir, there’s a problem with fire control. We can’t launch.”

That was when we realized we had a significant problem. The fire control mechanisms that looked so completely installed were still full of bugs and problems. We could fire the missiles – but we had to manually trigger each launch by hand in the missile bays. Antimissile fire worked, but that was all. I was about to order the other ships to fire instead, but realized we were well and truly out of effective range now. Better to conserve our missiles.

Two of the ships set off after us in pursuit. One, which looked like it had already suffered some damage during the fight in Mars orbit, headed for the docks of the repair station instead. They were in for a shock.

We were several hundred thousand kilometers away from the station when the wounded ship docked. Docking triggered the explosive devices we’d set in the hangar shell, and a daisy chain of small nuclear blasts in each hangar bay. They ruined the interior of the shell, destroying the docking berths, the repair stations, and millions of dollars in equipment. I was gratified to detect the secondary explosion of the enemy ship; the concurrent detonations plus the explosion just outside its airlock had been too much, and something had blown inside the ship, ripping it to bits.

There had been some debate over the booby trap among my captains and I. James was concerned that the station represented such an important hub of trade and commerce out here, and damage to it would hurt the company and the economy. I pointed out that we couldn’t defend it, but couldn’t afford to let the enemy use it either. Blowing the entire station was out of the question. We simply didn’t have enough explosives without burning up all our missiles. The best I could think of was to make the repair bays inaccessible. Taking another resource away from the enemy was worth the loss. Taking away one of their ships at the same time was just gravy.

The other two ships stayed in pursuit. We were four days from Earth.

Chapter 12

Nicholas Stein

Only two days after leaving Mars, Defender and Indefatigable decelerated into Earth’s gravity well, pinging active radar as we came. That was still more than enough time for the pirates – and I was increasingly disliking that word for the enemy – to make a mess of the place. The orbital structures were wrecked. That was the only word for it.

Before the crisis, Earth had thousands of small satellites. Most were simple communication and navigation systems. A few dozen were inhabited by people for various things, ranging from tourism to manufacturing. Humanity had two stations which could rightly be called cities, one each at the geosynchronous orbit sites of L4 and L5. And one station – the International Space Colony, distant descendant of the old International Space Station – had become a hub of commerce instead of a colony, taking in goods from bases all around the solar system and shuttling those goods down to Earth, and storing supplies from the mother world to be ferried out to all our far-flung outposts.

The ISC was gone. It had been vaporized by the first attack, the hundreds of men and women who worked there annihilated when a rock hundreds of meters across tore through the fragile framework separating them from the void. One of the other colonies had suffered a similar fate, although the thousands of families residing in the third had been spared so far. Debris from strikes against assorted other satellites was scattered all over in low orbit, smashing many of the remaining satellites and causing huge navigational hazards. Particular care seemed to have been taken to wipe out every ship building facility in orbit. Nothing remained of Earth’s ship building infrastructure.

We dumped a lot of speed toward the end of our trip. I had no interest in walking into the same sort of trap that I had set for the enemy at Mars. The enemy had gone silent, their drives shut down, waiting. Somewhere out there were ships, that much was certain. And there was no way they could have missed us coming, not at the speed we were moving. Greater acceleration equates to greater energy output, with ion drives. Our acceleration leaving Mars and then the deceleration at the end of the trip stood out like a flare against the background of space. They knew where we were – and we had no idea where they were. It was an uncomfortable lack of intelligence.

We’d been picking up the panicked communications from Earth for a while now. Another city had been taken out, this time Melbourne in Australia. I didn’t miss that both cities were selected for having spaceports and heavy space oriented industry. The enemy was systematically destroying Earth’s ability to build new ships.

We were sailing into a mess. The first hails came from Lunar City when we were still some million kilometers out. I ordered both ships to maintain radio silence for the time being, but the calls became more frantic as we got closer. Finally, the comm officer told me in a nervous voice that he was getting calls directly from the United Nations headquarters building. Not who I really wanted to spend time talking to right now, but I might have attracted attention from high enough up the political food chain to get some real intel at this point, which would be valuable. I gave the order to put the call through.

The face that came up on screen was one I knew well and would happily have never seen again. “Patrick,” I said. “Whatever can I do for you today?”

“Stein. I might have known you were involved in this somehow,” the old man on the screen replied. If looks could have killed, he’d have slain me even across all the distance between us, his glare was so hate-filled. The years had not softened Patrick Shaunesey, not even a little.

“If by ‘involved’ you mean I am trying to save your sorry ass, then yes,” I snapped. “You more than anyone else shouted me down when I was trying to point out the idiocy of the Accord. Well, you won. You got your damned Accord. Now you’re reaping the whirlwind, and I have to say... I’m feeling a little self righteous about now.”

“You smug, arrogant bastard,” he replied. “Are you in league with these people in some way? Have you come to finish the job, now that they’ve run off?”

“I suspect they ran off because they saw me coming. I’ve already destroyed three of their ships defending Mars, and the other ship with me has killed one and captured another. We came as soon as we heard they were attacking the surface. I may dislike you, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand duty.”

“It doesn’t matter, Stein. You’re a dead man now. Dead man walking.” Patrick Shaunesey smiled in a way that exuded an oily feel.

I was done with him. I didn’t have time for this crap right now. “If you have Admiral Perrault around, which I suspect you do, then put him on. Otherwise...” I moved to press the button to cut the connection but there was a jumble on his end, and then a man in US Navy blues came on the screen. Admiral Perrault was the Chief of Naval Operations – basically the buck stops here man when it came to anything the United States did in space, and he had a hand in guiding United Nations policy as well. Unlike Shaunesey, his face was a welcome sight.

“Nick,” he said.

“Barry,” I replied. “I wish I was able to say hello under a bit better circumstances.”

“Patrick is still an ass. Sorry about that.”

I shrugged. “Nothing new there. He’ll die spitting in my face.”

“He’s right about one thing, Nick. You’ve stepped in it this time. The Accords don’t give us a lot of wiggle room, you know? But we need your help right now. There’s at least six ships that we’ve seen, but they keep flitting in and out, so it’s hard to track their numbers. There could be more. Are those ships of yours up to a real fight? The pirates seem to have backed off for now, but I doubt that will last.”

“We’re up for it. If we can find them, we can probably kill them. Or at least take enough of them with us to put a serious crimp in their style,” I replied.

“Don’t get blown up,” he said with a grim smile. “You must have seen the damage to our orbital platforms. It’s going to be a long time before Earth can get any new ships made, and that means you’re literally our last means of responding to this threat.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “No promises, but I’ll do what I can to stop them. If you can send me the tracking data of their movements since they got in close to Earth, that would be a big help. Perhaps we can figure out where they are, or at least what they plan to do next. I’d like to try to whittle away a few of their ships, but that’s hard to do when they’re hiding from us. What I don’t want is for them to get the jump on us. That would be catastrophic.”

“Agreed. I’ll authorize transmission of all the data we have to your ship, including their movements and last known locations. Defender and Indefatigable, eh? You always were a romantic at heart, Stein. Just don’t get yourself killed out there. It would ruin Shaunesey’s day down here to have to speak at your memorial service instead of your court hearing.”

I laughed. “If I was worried about the good opinion of people like him, we’d all be in a lot more trouble right about now,” I said in a voice dripping with scorn.

“You’re right, damn it. OK? Is that what you’ve been waiting to hear someone say? Yes. You were right.” He looked grim. “For everyone’s sake, I wish you hadn’t been.”

“So do I,” I said, and cut the connection.

“Well,” I looked around at the bridge crew. “Things might be looking up a little bit. Earth seems to be finally coming around to my point of view about the need for a space navy.”

That got a few laughs. Cheering up the crew was important. We were outnumbered and outgunned. The enemy knew where we were, and we had no idea where they were or even how many of them there were. Morale was going to be vital. I wished it didn’t feel so hollow in my gut. True, Earth would likely abandon the Accord and launch a real space force after this – assuming we won. All it took to get them to see the light was a few million deaths and the destruction of most of their space infrastructure. I sighed heavily and sat back down on my bridge chair.

I had spent a lot of years thinking about the eventual – I always considered it inevitable – day when someone would break the Accords. I’d gone through countless variations of attacks which might come up, ranging from a nation state breaking the Accord to make war on another nation, to a small group which had managed to smuggle a couple of ship based weapons into space. But this seemed like something different. This group had the deep resources of a major corporation or nation behind them. They had many ships. At least six here plus the six at Mars and the two the Indefatigable had met in space. That was at least fourteen ships, and it seemed likely they had more. Even assuming that they had captured many of those by forcing them to surrender, just arming that many ships should have been beyond the means of almost anyone.

Getting weapons up into space was very, very difficult. I knew from experience. And setting up to manufacture weapons in space was almost as hard, even for the exec of a large corporation that had good, legitimate reasons to have secret R&D bases on the books.

So this had to be more than some private individual who thought they could make a quick buck and then vanish, or was just out to make their splash on the pages of history. The enemy had large numbers of launchers and missiles. Those had to be manufactured somewhere. They had ships to start off with. Those didn’t just appear out of the ether, either – but these ones seemed to have. And they had crew. Lots of crew, if they were running fourteen plus ships. All of this implied a high level of organization, and strong monetary backing – from somewhere. The trick was to trace back where those funds were coming from, and nail the head of the snake.

We had been drifting in Earth’s orbit for a day or so when the enemy made their next move. I realized I had been unconsciously thinking of them as just an ‘enemy’ for a while now. Not pirates or anything so pre-defined. Just my enemy. That they were not simply out for piracy was growing more and more clear by the day. It seemed more likely to me that their aim was nothing less than the subjugation of Earth. Or at the least, the destruction of Earth’s ability to reach to the stars, which in effect was the same thing.

Defender and Indefatigable were on station side by side. I was keeping the two ships close, the better to support one another against their greater numbers if they decided to attack. Our early efforts to spot them had failed utterly. Space was too big and spotting a cold target sitting still out there was beyond our abilities. It was too easy to power down a ship and hide very well. So we settled back into a fairly close orbit and waited for their next move. I didn’t like it, but it was the best we could do.

“Inbound object, closing fast!” came the call from our radar station.

I tensed immediately, but kept my voice calm. “Object? What is it?”

“Not a missile, sir. Looks like maybe another rock, aimed at Earth.

“Will it pass within our missile envelope?” I said. It would be best if we could hit the asteroid with missiles without diverting our course. I suspected that wouldn’t be the case.

“Negative, outside it. We’ll need to accelerate to catch it.”

“Helm, give me a boost to bring that target inside our missile range. Weapons, fire as soon as you’re in range. I don’t like this. They’re testing our ability to respond. Radio Indefatigable and have them stay tight with us so we can combine our missile defense if needed.”

Ten minutes later, missiles were away and within half an hour, the object was destroyed. It was only minutes after it was blasted to bits, however, that radar spotted another asteroid in our back path – back around the orbit the way we had come. We’d have to swing around the entire planet to catch it. Simply reversing the orbit and turning around would take too long to dump all the velocity we’d already built up. Everyone suited up into the acceleration suits, and we poured on the speed instead, pushing the engines to come around in time. By the time we blew the second rock, we were all tired of the suits and their aqueous breathing medium.

That wasn’t the end, though we had a rest. The enemy ships kept on slinging rocks at the Earth. We were stuck running around the planet in circles, trying to keep up with their shots. Once they fired two at the same time, and we missed one of them that was just too far away to fire on. It was probably aimed at New York City, but tore a chunk out of eastern Connecticut instead. I ground my teeth together in frustration at the loss of life. After that, I split the two ships up. I knew in my gut that was a mistake, but what else could I do? It was either that or let the enemy get kinetic strikes through our defense with impunity.

The pattern of strikes intensified as the days went on. Our enemy spent a day slinging rocks at Earth, over a dozen in all. Then they paused for a day as if to reassess. Likely, they were gathering more ammunition. The third day they were back at it, and we were hard pressed to keep up the pace against their asteroid attacks. Nothing got past our defense, but none of our crew got any rest. The fourth was quiet again. I spent the time cursing them, wishing they would come out and fight. I even took Defender out and away from the Earth a bit, but all I was ever able to detect were some faint long range signals, the echoes of their travels. They were staying far away from my ships.

Then on the fifth day, they unloaded three volleys of six rocks at a time. We only managed to kill about half of each volley. The others impacted fairly randomly, but all did some level of damage and all caused casualties. It was disheartening. No matter how hard we fought – and we had put ourselves through the wringer trying to keep up with those last attacks! - it wasn’t enough.

Having worn us down and demonstrated their power to the Earth, they sent a new message over open radio.

“People of Earth, despite your continued attempts to defend against our attacks, we have proven we can push past your defenses any time we choose. We could destroy every major city on Earth if we want to.”

I tried to place the voice. Male with an Aussie accent. Not a shock – the Melbourne space-port had been down on its luck for a few years now. There were a lot of spacers who were out of work as a result. It would have been a prime recruiting ground.

“That’s not what you want. It’s not what we want, either,” the voice went on. “Instead, we want to offer you life. Real life: the chance to unite under one rule and build a great civilization under one voice.”

My comms officer broke in. “Sir? Call from Admiral Perrault.”

“Put him through,” I said. I made a new tab on my screen and Barry’s unsmiling face appeared there.

“Are you hearing this?” Barry asked.

“I am,” I replied.

The radio continued to spill out the enemy’s demands. “You have twenty four hours to consider your position,” the faceless enemy speech went on. “Surrender is inevitable. We will continue pounding the planet until you do surrender. We will kill each national leader who refuses, scorch the entire city around them, and then ask the next leader the same question. Eventually, someone will see reason. The only question that remains is this: how many of your people will you allow to be killed before you see the light?”

I could feel we were heading into endgame, now. “Full alert, battle stations,” I ordered.

All around the bridge, men and women made ready for combat. I could almost feel the thrum of their anticipation through the ship’s hull.

“Nick,” Barry broke in – his connection was still good. “Our ground based radar is picking up two clusters of ships inbound. Looks like six ships per cluster.”

“Send me the data?” I asked.

“It’s already on its way.”

Our brief reprieve was over. I wondered what Earth’s response would be. They’d already lost so much. And we’d proven we could not defend them against the full force of these attacks. Plus, we would run out of missiles eventually, and the enemy had effectively unlimited ammunition so long as they kept using rocks for weapons.

“Sir, I’m checking over the data Earth is sending us. Those two groups of ships are on a convergent course. They’ll link up in a couple of hours.”

I yanked the radar plot up on my screen. No way we could intercept either group before they met up. They really had planned well. Being unseen while keeping us in sight had given them enormous tactical advantage. Now we’d be forced to face the full twelve ships at once, and that was if twelve was really all they had. I wouldn’t put it past them to hide another few ships out there, lying in wait.

“Accelerate both our ships,” I tapped my screen and drew a line for a vector. “We need to put some distance between us and those ships. Need to wait for the right moment. Kick us around the other side of the planet from their rendezvous point. We’ll sit tight there for now,” I said.

What I didn’t say was that I needed badly for the enemy to make a mistake. It was still six to one odds, like the so called ‘Battle for Mars’, but the Inde had a lot less tubes than the Defender, and I wasn’t sure how well her captain would handle a high pressure fight. So far he’d done well, but he hadn’t been fired on while in command yet, either.

We needed them to make a mistake. I stared at the plot and prepared myself for a chess game – with the winner charting the course for the next hundred years or more of humanity’s future.

Chapter 13

Thomas

We were a day closer to Earth and the enemy was still hot on our tails. They were clearly tracking us, but stayed just outside of missile range and unable, or more likely unwilling, to get inside that range and engage us. That might mean they weren’t aware of the Constellation’s missile control problems, and if so I was grateful for the small blessing. We needed a way to shake them off our tails though, or they were going to catch and engage us the instant we slowed down for approach to Earth.

I managed to catch a nap at long last and woke feeling a bit better rested. The bridge crew reported no change, and no luck yet getting the missile controls working. I hoped we could get them functional in time. Meantime, we still had enemy ships to fry, somehow. But an even engagement of missile tubes seemed risky at best, especially with so many of the crew from my ships inexperienced with the weapons operation. I was sure the enemy had plenty of firing practice. But where could I get help to even the odds? Earth, of course, if Defender and Indefatigable were there. But most likely they had troubles of their own.

There was one other place I might be able to get some help. I called up system maps. Yes, it just worked out. We’d lose about a day, overall, but it was the only place between here and Earth we might be able to shake the ships tailing us.

I opened the communications window on my console to contact the other ships. Secure laser comms were the best bet – no way for the enemy to listen in, and we had good line of sight so it was safer than radio.

James had settled on a martial sounding name from early space flight for his ship’s new name: Excalibur. I approved. I was sure Dad would as well – he loved stuff like that.

“This is Constellation. Need a brief conference with your captains.” There was a moment’s pause, and then James and Kel’s faces popped up on the monitor. “I want to make a small heading change. Sending you the new directions now.”

Another pause, then James came back, “Thom, that course takes us out of alignment from a shortest time transit to Earth. And there’s nothing out there. Is there?”

“There is indeed,” I said with a grin. “There’s a secret SSI station out there.” I related how when my father and I first went out on a courier, we had tripped a bucket load of active radars. I had never found out for sure, but I had a hunch that the base was very well defended indeed.

“But you don’t know for sure,” said James.

“Well, no. But I know my father. He would have fortified the place before he even started work on building an armed ship. And I can’t imagine that he hasn’t added to the defenses over the years he’s had the place active. I think we can get some solid help there. Plus, worst case and they can’t help us, we simply slide on by. The station is masked pretty well and won’t be picked up unless they fell right on top of it. Maybe the courier we took is still there, and can grab our noncombatants and bring them to Mars.”

“It sounds like it’s worth a shot,” Kel said. “But how will they know not to blow us to bits when we approach? You have a pass code or something?”

“Family passwords, yes,” I said. “They’ll know it’s me and if I use the right code, they should use every available asset to help.”

“Well, we’re with you, Thomas. Your command, your call. Changing course now,” James said.

Our three ships rocketed along at the new vector. Time to make a phone call and hope someone with some firepower was listening.

I had to use radio, this time. I couldn’t see the station, and I had only a best guess idea of where it should be in its orbit. I knew our course would bring us close, but not where it was precisely enough to use a laser comm. So I broadcast ahead of us using a standard SSI emergency frequency, with company encryption – and signed it with my name. Even if it was intercepted, decrypting it should take long enough to be irrelevant. It still wasn’t as secure as I’d like; if they had broken our encryption or bought out the wrong person, they might be able to hear every word I said. But it was the best I could do.

“This is Thomas Stein, commanding a task force of three ships with two enemy ships in pursuit. We are in need of assistance in dealing with the enemy ships, and in offloading rescued hostages if possible. However, we are on a fast track to Earth and cannot decelerate or we will lose a dangerous amount of velocity from our approach. By all reports, we’re needed there badly right now. Can you assist us? Sending my authentication and emergency code.”

Then I waited a few minutes. A few more. Finally, my comm tech said, “Sir, we’re being pinged by a communications laser from somewhere ahead.” Finally.

“Put it through,” I said.

Meg’s face popped onto the viewer. “You Steins have a knack for trouble, I think,” she said. “You’re right. Your father is in it deep. He’s blowing up rocks as fast as the enemy ships can pitch them at Earth, but they’ve got both his ships running ragged over there. More help will be welcome; he’s definitely outnumbered.”

She went on, her mouth becoming a thin, grim line. “Now, your little...problem...is something we can take care of for you. Stay on your present course and do not under any circumstances change your heading. We’re computing flight paths to avoid your ships, but if you change course, you’re likely to fly into something nasty.” She shook her head. “You went out with one ship, sent that one home and came back with three more. Plus you removed their ability to use the hostages against us. Not bad, Thom. Not bad at all.”

“Took out two other ships of theirs as well,” I said, smiling at the praise.

“Yes, well, if you’re keeping score, your father has taken down three. Go catch up.” Then her voice became more serious again. “He needs you. Don’t slow down at all, keep accelerating. We’ll launch the courier shortly to pick up your noncombatants. It’s fast enough to match velocity with you in a day or so, dock and take them on board.”

“Sounds good. Oh, you have any good electrical techs you can send over with the courier? We’re having a problem with the missile racks on the Constellation.” Quickly I outlined the issue.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Meg said. “Got to run. Out.” And the transmission ended.

I called the other ships again, passed on the message to not change course no matter what we saw coming our way. I was just in time. Ten minutes later, we saw the flare of a ship acceleration ahead of us – the courier. I hoped the station really could deal with our tail problem because although the courier was fast, there was no way it could boost fast enough to stay outside their missile envelope. It would catch up with us in another day or so, but they’d be all over it long before then. And it had no defenses or weapons at all.

More time passed. We were closing on being neck and neck with the courier. Pretty soon, it would slip behind us and then we’d be forced to either leave it to be destroyed, or turn and face the pirates. I hoped Meg had something really good up her sleeve. That’s when I heard my radar tech gasp.

“What is it?” I said. I jerked my gaze to the radar plot. Active pings were showing up everywhere. We were surrounded by active radar buoys, and they were lighting us up. It was a kill zone, a huge kill zone. I remembered all the sensors that pinged Dad and I when I first came out here. I had a feeling we were about to see the defenses attached to those sensors.

“Missile launch! Multiple missiles, multiple sources!” the radar tech shouted out. I sat watching the plot. The pirates tried to launch their own missiles at a couple of nearby radar buoys, which predictably had fired off antimissile rockets of their own. But then dozens – no, scores – of other buoys around the region launched missiles at the pirate vessels.

In a matter of seconds, nearby space was filled with missiles, hundreds of them.

The pirates’ vessels had some minimal missile defense, and they tried their best, firing salvo after salvo of rockets at the incoming mass of missiles. First one, then two, then fifteen of the attack missiles were blown to bits. There were so many that fifteen wasn’t nearly enough to matter.

Two minutes after the massive launch, both enemy ships were gone. Not damaged, not a wreck in space. Just gone, nothing left but a fast-spreading debris field scattered by the explosions that had reduced them to dust and shrapnel. I whistled softly to myself as the station’s defenses went cold again.

“Good thing Dad doesn’t believe in taking chances and doesn’t mind overkill,” I said softly.

The courier caught up with us the next day. In preparation for transferring non-combatants over to the courier, we’d shifted them all over to the Constellation. One link-up, the courier could load us up with supplies, and take on their new passengers for return to Mars. The little ship was built for speed, and came up on us quickly. Soon, the courier was nestled snugly up against the side of my ship.

I was down to meet the crew Meg said she was sending. The hatch slid open, and standing there was Meg, herself. I gaped for a moment.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” she asked.

Her gentle reminder helped. I pulled myself back together.

“Granted!” I said. “And gladly. I was hoping you could send some help, but never dreamed you’d come yourself!”

“Thom, I’ve served your Dad on this project since it started. I know missile integration better than just about anyone else alive. If anyone can get their systems working with one of our ships within the two day window you have left, it’s me. Besides, I had a hankering to see this thing through to the finish, and I’m sure a good engineer wouldn’t be a bad thing to have on board in a fight.”

I agreed instantly, and accommodations were set up for her and the three crew she’d brought with her. She also had three more engineering crew for each other the other ships, bringing them out of red line staffing and into something much more manageable.

Two hours later, the courier was winging away with most of the hostages we’d rescued. The ones who were staying with us were mixed in with crew from the Inde and folks from the R&D station, so we had a good block of folks trained for combat mixed in with those who were not. Still, I ran a series of drills to get the squadron into fighting shape before we reached Earth. Two days was too short, but it was better than nothing and all we had. I made use of it.

We ran the ships through scores of damage control drills, ranging from fires to depressurization to missile impacts. We ran a long series of simulated missile launch drills and early on the last day of our transit, we were cruising past a few small rocks in space and used them as target practice for some live fire. The Constellation’s missile control was still a mess. Meg thought she had the problem identified, some sort of compatibility issue between the software in the missile bays and that in the newer model of main computer. But she hadn’t gotten it working.

“Yet,” she insisted. “I just need a bit more time.”

Time was something we were running out of. We were cruising in toward Earth at a crazy velocity. There was no way we could decelerate in time at this point, but we didn’t plan to use the drives to brake us. We’d swing into a tight Earth orbit and aerobrake, using Earth’s atmosphere to slow our speed and dump our velocity. It was going to be tricky, but the computer on Constellation was up to the task of calculating precisely the course needed for each ship. It gave us a high probability of not burning to a crisp.

But still no missiles. We were six hours from being in Earth’s outer active radar, and probably about that time we’d be spotted by the pirates. Those missile racks were a constant worry to me. Without them, Constellation was little more than a big target.

Chapter 14

Nicholas Stein

Perrault was on the radio less than an hour after the enemy ships made their demands clear.

“Thanks for taking my call,” Admiral Perrault said.

“No worries,” I replied, waving a hand. “I am guessing you’ve got bad news?”

“The United Nations has voted to give in to their demands, Nick.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’d expected as much. No sense getting angry with Barry over it. He didn’t make policy. He was just informing me of it. Still, even though I’d expected them to fall apart like wet paper, to actually see it happen was galling. This was what I was fighting for? Maybe I should just return home and defend Mars where people had more willingness to stand up and fight.

I pretended disinterest. “Not sure what that has to do with me,” I said.

“It means they want you to stand down and surrender,” Barry said.

“And why would I do that?” I said, chuckling a little.

He straightened his jacket a bit. “They’re prepared to offer you amnesty for violating the Accord. You, your crew, and everyone else involved in building your ships.”

That was a hardcore amnesty being offered. There was just one small problem with it. “Barry, they’re surrendering to people who violated the Accords. The horses have already left the barn on that one.”

“I know that, damn it. But they made you giving up a condition for Earth’s surrender.”

“So if I just up and head for Mars, you’re up a creek, hmm?” I asked. I wasn’t serious. I’d never abandon all those people like that.

Barry paled a little. “You wouldn’t.”

“I think you know me better than that,” I said. “I think I will decline the offer of amnesty. Too much at stake to leave it in the hands of politicians.”

“Damn it, Nick. It’s six to one odds out there.”

“I’ve beat those odds before.”

He cut the line.

I knew the enemy ships had to be applying a great deal of pressure on the leaders of the UN stuck down there on Earth. They had to be sweating up a storm, wondering whether my being a loose cannon was going to be held against them. So far, the enemy hadn’t taken any further action against Earth, though. They’d stayed in a cluster together, orbiting about as far away from the Inde and Defender as they could get. Presumably, they were nervous about the losses they had taken near Mars, and didn’t want to chance splitting their force. Our ships could accelerate a great deal faster than theirs could, so as long as they opted to stay together, we simply kept most of Earth’s planetary mass between them and us. If they split up, they could catch us – but then we’d hammer whichever group we ran into first.

It seemed almost like they were still waiting for something. At first I assumed they were hoping Earth’s governments could convince me to stand down my ships so they could take them without a fight. If so, they had a long wait. I wasn’t planning on surrendering.

Earth must have realized they were not getting anywhere with me. They finally broadcast a general call, saying that they repudiated me, that I was outlaw, and anyone aiding me would be included in my trial for violation of the Lunar Accord. Their way of telling the enemy ships that they couldn’t deal with me either. But still, those ships just waited. They knew they couldn’t catch me but they chased around behind me in orbit anyway. What were they waiting for?

Then I found out. “Multiple contacts on long range radar, sir. Closing fast.”

“Update the plot,” I said. Eight new blips appeared on the holotank representing local Earth space. They were still a ways out and decelerating, so they’d be coming in fairly slowly. But they would be here within another day. At twenty to two odds, I couldn’t imagine that the enemy ships would hold off any longer. With those odds, there wasn’t much even Defender’s firepower could do.

“Plot us a course change,” I said. “I want to use the moon to keep us away from the batch of twelve here,” I pointed, “and Earth as a barrier for the new cluster here.”

That would keep the enemy ships from bringing their missiles to bear on us for another day or so, at most, and would bring us into contact with the cluster of eight first. So we could engage the smaller group first and then the larger afterwards. The downside of that course was if we elected to accelerate away from Earth and run for it, we’d still be forced inside the missile envelope of the group of eight. The course left us no choice but to engage that group. Other courses were still open that would let us get away clean, if we moved now. But I wasn’t about to run without at least giving them a taste of steel first.

The new course kept us away from engagement for another twenty two hours so I went off shift to get some rest. I was awakened only four hours later by an emergency call from the bridge. “You’d better get up here, sir,” said Glenn. “More ships inbound.”

“More? How many can they have?” I grumbled, sitting up in my bunk. “I’m on my way.”

The bridge was busy when I arrived. I walked over to the holo display and saw the new cluster coming in. They were moving along a similar vector to the group of eight – but not quite the same. Something about the angle rang a bell. “Back-track that course, navigator,” I ordered. “Find out where they came from, if you can.”

Whoever they were, they were coming in at an insane speed. There was no way they could flip and decelerate in time to brake into an Earth orbit. They’d need to do a precision aero brake, or they’d blow right by Earth’s orbit in a couple of seconds. It looked like they were lining up for an aero brake, which was pretty insane at that speed too.

“Here’s the back course, sir.” The holo changed, opening a larger view of the solar system and showing the likely path the three ships had taken to get where they are. And that was what had felt odd to me. The vector they were flying on would have taken them dangerously close to my R&D station. I hoped everything was OK out there.

Then the comm tech started laughing, and we all stared at him. There hadn’t been much levity on the bridge in the last few days. He tried to school his face into a more serious look, but the twinkle was still there in his eyes. “Sorry, sir,” he said.

“Well, out with it, man!” I replied. “What’s so hilarious?” Although I was starting to have an inkling.

“You’d better hear it yourself, sir,” he said. He flicked a switch, and the radio broadcast he had been listening to went out over the bridge speakers.

“Attention, all combatants in near-Earth space. This is Captain Thomas Stein of the SSI Constellation. My task force is closing on Earth orbit at this time, and is armed. We understand that Earth facilities have been engaged and destroyed by the enemy. We are here to put a stop to that. SSI ships in the vicinity, we will be making more secure contact shortly. Enemy ships – and you know who you are – you have ten minutes to begin decelerating to velocity neutral with Earth’s movement and prepare to surrender your ships. If you fail to surrender, you will be fired on and destroyed.”

“Well, well,” Glenn said, “the prodigal son returns.”

“I’ll kill the fatted calf for him myself if those ships with him really are armed,” I said. I smiled and meant it for the first time in days. I’d been wrong to try to keep Thomas out. And never so happy to be proven wrong as I was just then.

“Comms, get me a secure laser communication to the Constellation as soon as possible. Nav, plot the time till they are likely in missile range of that group of eight.” That’s who Thomas’s team would intersect with first. I wanted to be able to support them in the first contact. “Boost our acceleration to enter the fight at about the same time.”

The bridge crew scrambled to make things happen. I sat back down in the captain’s chair, smiling. Five to twenty was still not the best of odds, but it was a damned sight better than twenty to two! Now, perhaps we had a fight we could win.

Chapter 15

Thomas

“Weapons, bring the missiles hot,” I said. Meg had come through literally at the last minute. Constellation now had all missile systems live, although she wasn’t sure how long her fix would last. It would work for now, and that was good enough for me. I opened the comm to the other ships. “All ships, fire sequence alpha on my mark.” We’d drilled this on the way. First salvos counted for a lot. “Mark!”

Thirty missiles slashed across the void toward the enemy ships. We were firing volleys of fifteen at each ship, so it would take us four volleys to hit each ship. Four minutes. The first return fire missiles would impact us before then, but – the plot wasn’t showing any return fire! I watched the scans update the battle-space and saw the missile launches from my father’s pair of ships, twenty two missiles in their first volley. The entire massed enemy fire was streaking down on their ships, which were also about two minutes transit away. We fired another two volleys before the first missiles impacted.

The enemy ships were sorely lacking in antimissile defense compared to the SSI built ships. Indefatigable and especially Defender had powerful antimissile defenses that the other ships in the area lacked. Something I had to remember myself. Our first volley tore through their defense. One ship was obliterated outright and the other lost most of its power, acceleration dropping off heavily. The missiles from Dad’s group impacted shortly after that, scattering a bit through the cluster of ships. They finished the bird we had wounded and tore up two others pretty badly.

Then it was their turn. Their first and second salvos had been forty-eight missiles strong. The first wave was directed entirely at Indefatigable. Defenses from both ships tore into the missiles coming at the Inde and deflected most of them. But I could see on the scan that there were multiple impacts and that some damage had been taken.

The second waves of friendly missiles hit moments later. Fifty-two missiles targeted six enemy ships. Those ships tried to fire everything they had for defense, and to their credit despite their mediocre systems they still took down half of the missiles. What got through left two ships gutted and drifting, and tore the other four up badly. None of the enemy had escaped unscathed, and already there were more volleys bearing down on them. Inde’s volley seemed smaller, like they’d lost a missile bay, but the other friendly ships were sustaining their maximum rate of fire.

But forty eight more missiles bore down on the Inde as well. This time, I could see that more shots were getting through. The damage to her defenses must have been pretty severe. Dad even tried to maneuver the Defender to better shoot down some of the incoming, but there was nothing anyone could do. I found out later that a SABOT round simply punched through the fission drive. The drive lost containment and blasted the ship to bits. All I saw on my scan was that one moment, Indefatigable was there in space and the next, it was gone.

And then we were past the fight, still headed toward Earth. Too close – dangerously close. Braking against the atmosphere was rough even under controlled conditions, but at the speed we were traveling it was going to be tight. We started our swing around the planet and lost view of the battle. The Defender, of course, still had twelve angry enemy ships on her tail, and it would be several minutes before we’d swung around the planet with a new and slower velocity, and several more before we’d be able to engage the enemy. For the time being, Dad was on his own.

Chapter 16

Nicholas Stein

Indefatigable was gone. I had tried to shelter it under our defenses after the initial wave of missiles had crippled her anti-missile defenses, but what Defender had been able to add was still too little. Indefatigable had vanished in a fiery burst along with all her crew. A hot fury I hadn’t felt in a long time welled up in my chest, and I did my best to quell it. The last time I’d allowed myself that sort of self-righteous anger, I’d killed over a billion people in a nuclear explosion.

It was a crime that I’d been hailed as a hero for committing. And one that would forever stain my soul. I’d sworn to never let anger overcome my reason again, and I wouldn’t break that vow now. But it was hard.

We had defeated a large portion of the enemy task force at the same time, so even though the Inde was destroyed all was not lost. Thomas’s ships were swinging around the Earth and would be back to assist us shortly. My main task until then was to keep Defender alive, active, and able to fight while he finished the aero braking and brought his guns to bear.

The twelve ships behind us would be closing into firing range shortly. They weren’t really ‘behind’ Defender, or we’d simply boost to avoid them. Instead they were what was effectively above us on the elliptical of Earth’s rotation. Their course was closer to perpendicular than parallel, and we were going to have a hard time staying outside their missile envelope.

“All crew, stand by for hard acceleration,” I called into the general speakers. Anyone not in their suits and prepped for high acceleration by setting up to breathe the aqueous goop should have been already, but it was my habit to remind everyone anyway. Suddenly boosting to twenty gravities without protection would probably kill someone.

Right about then, the enemy fired. The holotank showed all those missiles as little dots, each tracking toward us.

“Nav, use whatever thrust you need. Get us out of their kill zone. Weapons, ready full countermeasures and buoys. Return fire. Comms, inform me the instant Constellation is back in radio contact.” That would be once they had rounded the Earth and had line of sight again. A chorus of “aye, sir” responded. I had a good crew. It had been good training them and worth every second.

I felt the small jolts through the fluid in my suit as we fired off a volley of missiles at the enemy. We were at the outside of our range, so I didn’t expect a lot of results, and we were accelerating hard away from them, which made it worse. It put us in good defensive stead, however. With the extra boost from the acceleration, our defensive systems had more time to track and eliminate the missiles. This time, none got through.

“Looks like they’re breaking off, sir,” said our radar tech. “Or turning around.”

“Sir, I’ve got radio back with Constellation!”

Which told me what the enemy was turning for. With Thomas’s people momentarily blinded by blackout as they came up out of the atmospheric soup they had used to aero brake, they had no idea that twelve ships were coming about and getting firing solutions on them. No idea that they were about to come up out of the atmosphere into a hail of missiles.

“Flip the ship!” I ordered. “Reverse our course, full acceleration!” I felt rather than heard the change in stress as the ship flipped over endwise and started pushing twenty gravities back in the other direction. We were flying right into the teeth of the storm now as well. But there was no other way. The die was cast, and I’d be damned if I let my son fly into that mess without coming to help!

Chapter 17

Thomas

The aero brake maneuver went well. None of the ships had blown to bits or crashed, and it looked like we had escaped with all systems intact. Now we were climbing up out of the thin upper layers of the atmosphere, and our radar slowly able to give us a better picture of the space around Earth. We’d dumped most of our speed in the move and had to fire our engines now to give us a bit more thrust. Up there ahead somewhere was the enemy, and I watched as the scans slowly cleared.

“Multiple contacts, dead ahead!” someone hollered. “Missile launch! Sir... over seventy missiles inbound, ETA one minute.”

“Give me a firing solution on them.” Outwardly, I was calm, but inwardly I wanted to scream in frustration. If they’d kept chasing Defender for just another minute, we would have been cleanly up behind them. But I supposed they realized that, and now they had turned the tables back on us.

“Solutions set, sir,” came the immediate reply.

“Transmit firing solutions to the other ships, fire all tubes on continuous fire for as long as we can,” I replied. There was the brief shudder as the ship spewed forth eighteen missiles. “Launch buoys,” I said, grateful beyond measure that Meg had brought them along and found time to install the devices on the Constellation. The buoys popped off the sides of the ship and begin spiraling off in different directions, screaming that they were really the target the incoming missiles wanted. “Engage antimissile fire,” I continued. Only two of our ships had antimissile rockets; Kel’s Aisling had none and would slip back into the trail of Constellation as we’d arranged previously, to try to duck away from some of the incoming heat.

Rockets leapt forward to engage the missiles. We had no guns to supplement them, but they managed to wipe away half of the deadly shots. I was sweating as I watched some of the missiles go scattering off in different directions, chasing the ghost images of the buoys. And then the missiles were in our formation, exploding around and through our ships. Seventeen missiles punched through our defenses to smash into our ships, carrying death with them.

Five hit Andy’s Excalibur, ripping huge tears in the hull and stabbing SABOT fire deep into the crew areas. One missile bay exploded, breaking off the ship and then detonating completely just clear of the starboard side. The force of the explosion kicked Excalibur into a spin and it slewed around, falling precariously back toward atmosphere as the crew struggled to right their ship and restore full power to the drives.

Two missiles snuck past the blocking obstacle of Constellation and smashed through the spindle of Aisling. She continued moving forward under power despite being rocked by the impacts.

Ten missiles impacted with Constellation. The ship was the logical biggest threat, and so most of the missiles had been targeted at us. I knew intellectually that we would be hit hard when we went into battle, but nothing had prepared me for the havoc those missiles wreaked as they smashed into and through the ship. Five nukes impacted against or near the hull, blowing the center ring to bits and smashing most of the forward crew ring, which also housed our missile defense platform. SABOT rounds shattered the hull near the engine, just missing the vulnerable fission generators. Our drive shuddered, and power fell as emergency shut-off switches killed the generator nearest to the impact. We were still under power, and the bridge was still alive, but we would be hard pressed to survive another set of hits like that.

On the bridge, I found myself again fighting hard not to vomit in my pressure suit. I could taste blood from a split lip. We’d been tossed around a lot. At least one console had exploded from feedback before the generator cut out. The man who’d sat there was laying back in his seat, his faceplate shattered, the glass cutting into his face. He wasn’t moving. The rest of the bridge crew seemed stunned as well. I unbuckled from my chair, staggered to my feet and somehow pushed off toward the weapons station where the tech was still too dazed to move. Three of our six bays showed damage, but that left us three more to return fire with, and nine more missiles launched from our tubes as I braced for the inevitable next wave that would destroy us.

I watched the plot and saw that there was no new flight bearing down on us. Our own missiles had done their work, of course. Even the defense from twelve ships could not completely shrug off thirty missiles. They had taken some hits as well. But none of their ships were down. But seeing my three ships damaged, our return fire faltering, they’d turned to face the bigger threat – a single, fast moving target.

Defender was accelerating toward them at twenty gravities, piling on all the thrust they could manage and firing as they came. Missiles streamed in to meet Defender from the enemy ships, but the range was too short for them to properly acquire such a fast moving target. While the missiles were trying to spot Defender, buoys were launched to confuse them and most of the missiles lost their track completely. Those that did find the right target were blown to bits by the missile defense guns mounted all about the ship.

The hostile ships were not as fortunate. At close range, their antimissile rockets had a hard time spotting the fast moving inbound missiles. The computers lacked the time to properly calculate trajectories so many launches were wasted. Missile after missile slammed home, all precisely targeted at vulnerable areas of the enemy ships. Then our second volley, ragged as it was, impacted into their rear.

Under the doubled attack, their ships came apart, spraying explosions like confetti. Half the enemy force was destroyed or reduced to lifeless hulks in seconds. The rear shots from our squadron blasted into vulnerable engine areas, shutting off power or setting off secondary explosions in their fission drives. None of their ships escaped unscathed.

Then Defender was in the middle of their formation, trading fire with them, SABOTs licking out at each other like broadsides from ancient ships of sail. These ships had never been meant to do battle at that range, and at the ship’s relative speeds the engagement lasted only seconds, but in those seconds, dozens of missiles flew back and forth. Defender exited that maelstrom intact, but shattered, drives dead and showing no power signatures at all.

The enemy had only four ships that were still in the fight. A fifth had decided they had enough and was trying to weakly boost away from Earth into space. The other four saw that Defender was out of the game and turned back on us.

Excalibur was still falling slowly toward the planet. Their drive was flickering on and off, but so far they had not been able to draw enough power to slow their descent. They’d have to abandon their ship soon if they didn’t find a way to stabilize the power to their drive. Ion drives are a superb system for traveling in space, but lack the thrust to lift a ship out of a near gravity well. They had perhaps another minute before they were too close for even full power to draw them back out again. Then – into the life pods. Every cargo ship had a few little pods you could hop into in case the ship was about to go bust. They had little air, a weak radio, no real radiation shielding, and were floating coffins as much as anything else, but if you were near a planet you might be able to get close enough to get pulled down toward the surface, pop a parachute and get rescued.

Constellation continued to limp forward under minimal power, using the leftover momentum from our aero brake to help us coast free of the planet’s grip. Suddenly, Aisling ducked around us, falling in directly in front of my ship. Her missile tubes were still all intact and blazing away. Constellation shuddered again as we fired another volley into the last of our foes. I saw Aisling pulling away farther and opened a channel to their bridge.

“Kel, what are you doing?”

“Taking the heat. You still have more tubes than us, and no antimissile rockets left, if my damage reading is right on. We’re taking point to buy you another volley. Don’t waste it.” And with that, she cut the connection.

I wanted to scream, or curse. To do something. But there was nothing I could do.

Twenty more missiles came roaring down toward our ships. They ignored Excalibur entirely, her slow plummet making her less a threat. She’d stopped firing a while ago. They focused their entire fire on the two ships dead ahead of them.

“Fire the last buoys,” I ordered. “This is it. We win here or die.”

The enemy’s fire control had to be damaged. More than half their missiles went off after the buoys, only nine chasing our ships as the senders had intended. Nine was still enough. Only one SABOT round made it past Aisling, punching through another of our missile bays and killing the crew inside, disabling another three of our tubes. The other eight missiles impacted Aisling, which detonated under the combined impact. I watched the missiles collide with the image of Kel’s ship on my radar screen, and then they all vanished, ship, crew, and missiles into one cataclysmic explosion.

My heart felt like it shattered along with her ship. For a moment I couldn’t see anything but the growing cloud of debris in front of my ship. It was my worst nightmare come to life. I’d brought Kel out here and that decision killed her.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak. My ship barreled ahead, firing as fast as our remaining tubes would allow.

Our eighteen missiles scattered among the enemy ships. Their defensive fire was ragged, sporadic. Damage had hurt their defensive ability as well. Only a third of our missiles were stopped. The other twelve found three targets, six at one and three at each of the others. The first went the way of Aisling, detonating in a concussive display of light and fire before vanishing. The second was torn in two, both halves spiraling off into different directions, spewing atmosphere into space as the crew on board tried desperately to escape their dying ship.

As suddenly as it had been joined, the battle was over.

Chapter 18

Thomas

James got Excalibur’s drives back on line and was limping forward to take a position alongside us, and the pirates – or whatever they were – decided that they had taken just about as much abuse as they wanted to today. They had already been accelerating on a new vector, and were even now jumping forward out of the reach of our missiles, boosting to higher speed as they left. Their parting volley was spent blowing the rest of the shattered hulls of their own ships – a cold but practical way to prevent more information about who they were from falling into our hands, and to stop us from repairing those ships to use against them in the future.

Three enemy ships escaped out of the twenty which had been arrayed against us. Not a total victory, but not a bad day.

Aisling and Indefatigable were both completely destroyed. Excalibur was in bad shape, and I wasn’t doing a lot better in Constellation. Defender was drifting and powerless. We made our way gradually over toward her, slow to catch up because of the speed she’d been moving when her drive cut out. As we were maneuvering, I called back to engineering to see how soon we could get our own drives back to full power, and I got another taste of how bad our own status was. No reply from engineering, and the main engine room was showing no atmosphere. A SABOT had passed through, and likely everyone inside was dead. We sent a rescue team anyway, but it was no use. The SABOTs made outstanding anti personnel weapons, and no one had survived the impact. Meg had been there. She’d wanted to see things through to the end, and I supposed she had. She’d saved my life twice, though. I wish I’d been able to thank her properly.

Once we had reached Defender, we docked with her. We pulled up one ship on either side and proceeded to evacuate the crew who had survived. The last man across my airlock was my father. He saluted smartly as he left his ship to step on mine, asking the ritual question, “Permission to come aboard?”

Our eyes met. Was that the glimmer of a smile I saw?

“Granted,” I replied. “And welcome aboard.”

He crossed the airlock in two steps and scooped me into a rare hug. I returned the hug hollowly. I felt spent, worn out. Done. Keladry was gone. It was my fault she was dead.

He seemed to sense something of my mood. I guess I’m not that hard to read. He backed away, hands still on my shoulders, looking into my eyes.

This past week – it had been such a short period of our lives, but somehow I felt like I understood him better than I ever had before. And looking at him now, I thought that the shadow I had seen behind his eyes for so long might finally be gone.

And with that, I realized what the shadow was. My father was a man of honor who had struggled his whole life to act as he thought honor demanded. But his own honor created an internal conflict. To do as he thought he must in order to defend humanity against the threat he saw looming in the future, he was forced to break the law, to circumvent rightful authorities. But worse, he had been forced to lie to people he’d cared for and respected. That, more than anything else, had caused him pain. At long last, the demands of my father’s honor were back in line with the dictates of his own personal code of integrity.

We started in on repairs right away. Nobody much wanted to talk to Earth right about then, although they certainly wanted to talk to us. We had nonstop comm requests from just about every official in just about every government out there. Dad said we’d need to get drives on line for all ships first, so that we could leave orbit if things got too heated. At first, I wasn’t at all sure Defender was going to go anywhere without a yard refit, her drive was so smashed up. On the fly repairs of something that complex are hard, even for the best. And Meg was dead. I think that one hit Dad harder than most. They’d been close for a long time, and something in the way he took the news made me wonder if they’d ever been a thing.

For me, I couldn’t help thinking about Kel, and thinking about what we’d shared all those years ago, and what it might have been if Dad hadn’t spotted romance flaring and sent me packing off to school and her to the far side of the solar system. I kept her out of our conversations enough that I think Dad caught on and stopped bringing her up. That was fine with me. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see her face again. I’d touched her life again – and destroyed it even more completely than I had the first time. She haunted my dreams, and I slept poorly.

We got emergency power back on the Defender the day after the enemy ships ran off. The day after that, we finally got a little bit of power back to the ship’s main drive. It wasn’t going to anywhere very fast, but it was able to move under its own power again. We moved Dad’s crew back into their own ship, a relief for our overcrowded vessels. Not everyone had been working on the engines – other crew placed patches in spots all over all three ships. The hulls had been holed by more SABOT rounds than I could count. Our ships still needed a lot of work before they’d be ready for another battle. Excalibur was missing a missile pod. Constellation had lost more than half her tubes and most of her missile defense was still out of action. Defender didn’t have enough power to fire a missile, although a few of her tubes would still function if we could get the fission drives working properly again. The one fission drive we’d gotten running was only running in ‘low power’ mode, a safety feature we decided we didn’t want to override until we had specialists take a look at it.

That was the shape we were in when my father, James, and I gathered in Defender’s bridge to accept our first call from Earth. We were battered, but still flying. Earth had been trying to contact us nonstop ever since the battle. We’d ignored all their calls and eventually they just left the same message on repeat – just asking us to please pick up the phone, radioed into orbit over and over. Earth still had ships that could reach us – shuttles and such. But they hadn’t launched anything. They were leaving us alone, and we were ignoring them. It worked fine while we were getting those first repairs done. My chest was a little tight, wondering what was going to happen when we re-opened communication.

Dad pressed the ‘receive’ button and the image of a bored comm tech popped up on our screen. The kid was staring off into space with a vacant look on his face, clearly bored to tears. I wondered how long he’d been sitting there, watching a communications console for our reply.

It took my father coughing loudly for him to realize we were watching him.

“You’re...I mean, you’ve...I mean...Uh...,” he stammered at us.

“Superior. Get him. Now!” my father ordered. Dad never did take kindly to idiots, and this kid wasn’t showing much in the brains department. He practically ran out of the room when he heard the ice in my father’s voice. A few moments later, the screen blinked as the call was transferred elsewhere. The person on the screen in front of me was and older man, balding and thin, with an oily smile. He seemed happy to see us in a way that I was sure we wouldn’t be happy about. I’d seen his face more than once before: Patrick Shaunesey.

“Stein,” he said. “Finally. You will surrender immediately to lawful authority for violating the Lunar Accord.”

“Patrick, Patrick... You have to be about wetting yourself right now,” my father said. “You want me in your claws so badly you can taste it. But I think even you’d have to agree that we just saved Earth from an enemy it couldn’t deal with any other way. The Accord is done for. Earth will be forced to build defenses now.”

“Yes, we probably will, but that doesn’t change anything. You broke the law while it was still in force. And you as well as anyone alive know the penalty for ignoring the law you fought to hard to stop,” Shaunesey replied.

“You might be short sighted enough to see it that way, Patrick, but will the U.N. President? Will the elected leaders of the rest of the world?” Dad asked.

“I am the new President of the United Nations,” Shaunesey said. “After signing the surrender order two days ago, President Michiov shot himself in the head. I was elected in his stead yesterday. You would have heard if you’d responded to our calls instead of sitting there in radio silence fomenting more rebellion,” he continued with a dark look.

This time, my father looked taken aback, and I understood why. The United Nations President held a great deal of power – on Earth, and even more so on the colonies, which were all run as U.N. colonies. From that seat, Shaunesey could put pressure on the various governments of the world, influence who was made a judge in the International Criminal Courts, and in general make life pretty miserable for us.

“Yes,” Shaunesey hissed. “I have already relayed orders to Mars for all SSI assets there to be seized and all employees arrested. Mars is a United Nations colony, so I have the all the authority I need to take emergency measures there in a case like this. As for your company holdings on Earth, it will be days at most before they are all seized. When I am done with your people, even the most loyal among them will curse you, Stein. And they will be all too glad to name you the terrorist and traitor to peace that you are!”

Time seemed to freeze for a moment. We all looked at my father, who had after all planned for the eventuality of the Accord’s failing for years. He must have had something in mind to deal with the aftermath. I hoped. ‘Lethal injection or firing squad’ was not a question I hoped to be hearing! But I looked back at the screen and stood firm beside my father. He seemed to draw a bit of strength from that and shoulders that had slumped a little drew straighter. He stared this new President in the eye.

“What do you really want, Shaunesey?” he asked. “You don’t really want to arrest all those people, tear apart all those lives. You’d go down in history as a tyrant, an evil man. Oh,” he waved his hand when the man on the screen looked about to object, “you’d do it in a heartbeat if you thought I was calling your bluff. You’re mean spirited enough to hurt anyone to get what you want.”

My Dad paused. “But that’s not what you really want, so what is it?” And then he crossed his arms and waited.

Shaunesey’s face mottled with rage. “You, you bastard! I want you, thrown down from where you’ve raised yourself up again. I tossed you down from fame to degradation once, but you had the temerity to crawl out from under your rock. This time, I won’t just tear you down. I will see you destroyed!”

Then he was suddenly calm again. I was starting to think that President or no, this guy was not exactly running on all thrusters. At least where my father was concerned, anyway. “And then you yourself handed me the perfect tool. Breaking the Lunar Accord is a capital offense. Surrender yourself to me and plead guilty to the charge of that violation. Do that, and your family, employees, and anyone else connected with your actions will be given a full pardon.”

My father nodded. “Now I understand. Very well, I accept your terms. Beam the pardon to this ship so that I can have the SSI legal team on Earth check it out. The pardon starts the moment I surrender, or no deal. No, I don’t trust you. Stein out.” And he closed the connection.

I realized my father had this outcome in mind for a while. He’d sacrifice himself to save everyone else – and Shaunesey would take the deal because he hated my father that much. But there had to be another way!

“Dad, you can’t. They’ll kill you,” I said.

“Didn’t you make that comment about one week and a lifetime ago?” he countered. “I have to. Doing this frees everyone else involved. In theory, he is right. With some work, the employment of hundreds of our people – maybe thousands of them – could be found to be involved. I doubt he could sentence thousands of SSI employees to death without an uproar, but he can file other charges against them and make their lives hell for a long, long time. I can’t protect them with one ship from space. Not even with three ships. Not without committing the same actions as the criminals we just fought against, and I won’t fight terror with terror.”

“Let’s think about it,” James said. “Maybe we can find another option?”

“No,” Dad said. “This is the only way I can protect all my people. All our people – they’ll be in your hands to safe guard if they do execute me, Thom.”

Softly then, he finished, “I knew this was the most likely end of this journey for me, son.”

Like hell it was, I thought grimly. I’d lost Kel already. I wasn’t losing my father too.

Chapter 19

Nicholas Stein

Things moved rather rapidly from that point. Shaunesey sent up the pardon within the hour, which was probably record time for a United Nations office to do much of anything. I sent it back down to my corporate lawyers who went over the text with a fine tooth comb. It came back as OK. There were no hidden clauses or problems with the text. Shaunesey was being straight up. For once. As soon as I was taken into custody, everyone else involved would be pardoned for all their actions. My lawyers added a clause about dispensation for Thomas and James to continue flying their ships while the U.N. worked out the Accord issues, but it turned out that wasn’t necessary. An emergency council session voted nearly unanimously to eliminate the Lunar Accord, and to create an armed United Nations space navy.

Ironically, both China and the United States voted against the measure. The two countries didn’t agree on a lot, but I think neither was happy with the idea of a one-planet navy that wasn’t in their pocket. It looked like it was going to become a reality, though.

The pardon settled, the next step was to turn myself in. I decided the best bet was simply to fire myself out of the ship in an escape pod. Since the pardon didn’t technically come into play until I had surrendered myself ‘to proper authorities’, it was possible that Shaunesey might order a boarding party to try to take the ship if I allowed a shuttle to dock with Defender to take me off. I wasn’t putting anything past the man.

The life pod seemed a safer bet. I had Glenn take Defender into a low orbit, hugged Thomas, and hopped into the pod. Worst case, they’d shoot me down with a surface to air missile as I descended. I didn’t think that was what Shaunesey had in mind. He wanted me in custody. Still, I had no interest in being ‘shot while trying to escape’, so I did take a few precautions.

The decent and splashdown were pretty uneventful. About ten minutes after my pod splashed into the ocean, I felt something lifting it, and me, out of the water. I was carried through the air this way for a short distance and then dropped gently onto a hard surface. I popped the hatch and climbed out. The sunlight was dazzling. I was on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and as my eyes cleared I could see there was quite the welcoming reception. I was greeted by what must have been two hundred soldiers and sailors on the deck, all at attention. From one side of the formation, a man I knew well stepped forward, his crisp dress whites practically glowing in the sunshine.

“Admiral Perrault,” I said formally. “Permission to board your vessel?”

“Granted, Admiral Stein,” he said with a warm smile. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks for agreeing to come get me,” I said. “I didn’t want to take chances with who got to me first.”

“You always were a smart boy,” he said, grinning.

I waved at the crew. “What’s all this?”

“A few of the men,” he said with a raised eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder at the mass of people behind him, “wanted to see you land and wish you well.”

A cheer erupted from the crowd, and I forced a smile for their sake. I never wanted to become a hero, the first time. The press made me into one anyway. At least if it happened again now, I could be proud of it this time. Maybe I’d become part of the legends oldtimers told the newcomers when Earth finally got around to building their space navy.

I stopped, realizing that I wasn’t thinking about Earth’s navy as ‘mine’ anymore. It was ‘theirs’. Now, when had that happened? I hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but somewhere along the line I’d stopped thinking of myself as a citizen of Earth. When I thought of home, it was of Olympus City and Mars, not Michigan on Earth. Odd. I filed the thought away to ponder later.

“I’m sorry you can’t stick around longer,” Barry said. “I have orders to bring you directly to New York via the fastest transit, so you’ll be leaving by supersonic fighter just as soon as we clear the deck.”

“Tell the man no rolls, please, Barry,” I said. “I don’t think he wants me decorating the inside of his cockpit.”

Perrault laughed and clapped me on my back. “Come get some coffee while they get the flight ready.”

Thirty minutes later, I was on a flight to New York aboard a military supersonic plane. It took us under an hour to arrive. From there I was handed over to United Nations security police. They locked me into a cell several levels below United Nations headquarters and took my statement and plea. As per the deal, I pleaded guilty as charged. That wasn’t as hard as it might have been. There may have been extenuating circumstances, but I certainly was guilty. Just because I felt it was a stupid law didn’t give me a right to ignore it. The certainty and that millions more people would have died and perhaps billions been enslaved if I hadn’t broken the Lunar Accord did not mean that I was innocent of the violation.

They interrogated me, got my entire story from when I had started building the hidden base on to the last few days. Through all of it, they were courteous and formal, very ‘by the book’. I’d been ready for rougher treatment, but the U.N. Security were polite, even collegial toward me.

Of course, I had some idea of what was going on outside. The guards all had tablets, and showed me a few articles now and then. The news media was in a complete feeding frenzy. The United Nations was pushing for a quick trial, so the papers said. I knew that’s because Shaunesey wanted me dead before people got their heads clear. But the journalists seemed a little unsure whether it was because they wanted a quick execution, or a quick trial to find me innocent so I could be decked out as a hero again.

People were still terrified. Millions were dead, and a couple of the enemy ships escaped. So much damage had been done, and people wanted an assurance that things would return to normal. Shaunesey was working on that fear in the press, and I could see some pieces where he had twisted things. But people were also hopeful, and they wanted a hero. A lot of people remembered that I had been named a hero once before, a long time ago. So the headlines were a wild mash of ‘Hero saves Planet’ mixed with ‘Mad Bomber Back Again’, and other lurid titles of similar flavors. The mob of humanity was always a fickle thing, and I began to wonder if this would go down precisely the way Shaunesey had planned it.

On the second day of my imprisonment, just two days before my trial was due to begin, I had an unexpected visitor. I hadn’t been allowed any visitors except a few carefully screened visits from SSI company lawyers, and they had to provide their credentials and thumb print scan. It seemed like someone was very nervous that I might have a rescue plan on the back burner somewhere. If so, they were worried for nothing. I was sticking this out, no matter how it ended.

Governor Clarke had spent a career learning to be efficient at cutting through U.N. red tape.

“Why governor, what a pleasant surprise,” I said, stretching and rising slowly from my cot. I’d only been down in Earth’s gravity a few days, and I was already tired of it. It had been hard to stay in shape in the small cell and would have been so much easier to just lie down all the time. But this trial could take months. I needed to be in good enough shape to handle it. So I’d disciplined myself to work out every day. I knew I’d made progress, but laying down was still more comfortable than standing in this gravity.

“I told you, please call me George,” he said.

I ducked my head a bit. “George, then. How’re things?”

“Better for me than for you. You’ve landed yourself in the pickle that we probably both saw coming, hmmm? This Shaunesey fellow is mighty peeved at you. I had to pull strings just to get in here to see you, he’s ordered you cut off.”

“I figured as much,” I replied. “What brings you here, though?”

Clarke must have burned a number of favors and called in some pretty significant debts to get in to see me. Which meant something was up. What was such a priority that he had to come in and see me now?

“I have been working with your defense crew,” Clarke said. “They’re running with the line that your best bet is to present the case as honestly as possible – I suspect you had a hand in that, lawyers are not a breed known for valuing honesty – and try to convince the court that there were extenuating circumstances that forced your hand. Throw you on the mercy of the court, more or less. After seeing the political climate here though, I have concerns about how merciful a United Nations court is likely to be toward you. Seeing as how the judge’s career will depend to some degree on the good will of this President Shaunesey. What did you do to anger him so much, anyway?”

“You really want to know?” I asked.

“It might help.”

I took a deep breath, let it out. “His wife was a United States diplomat before she died. She was in Beijing when I sent their ship home to them with a dozen nukes set to explode. She was among those killed in the blast,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“Yes, I don’t begrudge him his anger. If our positions were reversed, I’d be furious with him forever too.”

“I can understand his anger, but I’m not here to appease his emotions,” Clarke looked needle sharp now, his words clipped. “I don’t intend to allow him to commit injustice against you today over a transgression from long ago.”

I looked at him, alarmed. “You mustn’t plan anything illegal. Tell Thomas, too – no rescues, no last minute saves. I need to see this through.”

“No worries there, Nick. You know I’m a ‘by the book’ man myself. I’ve got some ideas to ensure that you’re given a fair shake, though.”

“You know they’re recording this entire conversation, right?” I asked.

“Of course. I’ve found it’s always polite to inform one’s enemies who they are facing.” Then he smiled at the camera. I’d seen the look before – on sharks.

Chapter 20

Thomas

We had to wait until Dad was on the ground and in the hands of United Nations authorities before we could really begin to take action. I sat and glared at the newsfeeds, watching every second of his descent from orbit, his splashdown in the ocean just off the east coast of the United States. I saw his pickup go off just as he’d planned, and then the newsies lost track of him for a bit. The next news was a couple of hours later when it had been confirmed he was in United Nations hands, tucked into a cell somewhere in New York City.

I hated the sitting on my hands. It gave me too much time to worry about Dad. And when I wasn’t worrying about him, I was going over the battle in my mind, over and over – wondering if there was something I could have done differently that would have saved Kel. I missed her, and every time I thought about her driving her ship out ahead of mine to shield us from the incoming fire, it hurt. So the last thing I needed right now was more time to sit and think.

But the damned pardon didn’t start until he was officially in United Nations custody, so there was a limit to what I could do. He’d already contacted the SSI lawyers on Earth and Mars and set up a legal defense before he left. And I couldn’t get to the ground where I could actually do anything until after the pardon was active.

I had no intentions of leaving his fate in the hands of someone like Shaunesey. I wasn’t sure just what could be done, what pressures I could bring to bear, but I’d find a way. I began by contacting the public relations offices of our company, back on Mars. I asked for advice, and asked them to expedite, but it would take over an hour for a reply to come back, even if they were waiting for my call. Longer really, since they’d have to compile some sort of advice.

While I waited, I checked into the SSI holdings on Earth. Shaunesey said he’d been after the governments to turn them over, and a few smaller offices had. But most of our facilities were based in the United States, which had a long standing history of taking its sweet time doing what the U.N. ordered it to do. And now, with the order rescinded, I had access to just about everything my father’s company owned on Earth.

It was a little daunting. I knew Dad had a huge business. I hadn’t known just how wealthy importing uranium from Mars to Earth had made him. SSI did over four hundred billion in revenue annually and made eleven figures in profits each year, a good chunk of which went to Dad because of his stock. When Dad handed me the information for his accounts, he gave me access to nearly unlimited funds. Unless I was gonna try to buy a country, I could manage pretty much whatever I wanted.

We knew where he was being held, now. So I could start taking action. We had an SSI installation relatively close to New York City, out in western Massachusetts. The company had used it for holidays, entertaining special guests, conferences, and the like. The building was well-built, had state of the art security systems, and even had a helipad on the roof. I ordered a platoon of security forces shipped there to clear the place and secure it. That was going to be our base on Earth.

Once that ball was rolling, I looked into how to get down to the ground. SSI owned shuttles on Earth. Some of them had gone up when Houston was destroyed. But we still had a few others. I woke up a whole bunch of people, and they started prepping one of the shuttles to come and get me.

Then I called James and Glenn, Dad’s XO, up to the bridge of the Constellation. I thought about it another moment, then called Sam as well.

We were adrift without any spin so they floated in. James and Glenn took the time to re-orient themselves to my ‘up’, so that we were all right-side up to each other. Sam didn’t bother, so he was hanging there looking upside-down and a little silly. It made me feel even better about the decision I’d made.

“I’m going Earthside to see how I can help Dad,” I said. “James, I’d like you to stay here and keep the ships safe.”

“I can do that,” he replied. “How long do you think you’re going to be? We’ll need supplies.”

“Make me a list of what you need, and I’ll see that the shuttle ferries it up. I’m not sure how long this court thing will take. Might be fast, might take a while.” To be honest, I didn’t know much about how it was going to work at all. I needed to get advice from some lawyers, and fast. This was really just another sort of battle, and I had to understand how this sort of combat worked or I’d be no use to Dad at all.

I turned to Glenn. “You’ve worked closely with Dad for a long time. You know how he ticks, maybe better than any of the rest of us.

He hesitated a moment before replying. “I don’t know if anyone really knows how your father thinks, not completely. But yes, I have a better idea than most people. I guess that’s why he wanted me as his second in command on Defender.”

“And it’s why I want you down on Earth with me, helping me find a way to save him.”

“Of course, I’ll help,” Glenn replied.

“What about me?” Sam asked, spinning around at last.

“You’re coming with me too,” I replied.

“Ugh. Really? I have to breathe Earth soup?”

I smiled winningly. “Yes. I need someone to fetch coffee for me.”

He crossed his arms and mock-glared.

“Seriously? I need someone I can trust to manage security down there. I don’t trust the U.N. people. I don’t even know with one hundred percent certainty that I can trust our security people. But I can trust you.”

“You’ve got me, don’t worry,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “The shuttle is going to take a while to prep, and longer to get up here, but be ready to go when it arrives. James, keep me in the loop about anything odd. You’re our eyes in the sky up here.”

“You’ve got it.”

I still didn’t know how I was going to get my father out of this mess. But I knew I’d be better positioned to do something from the ground. In the back of my mind was the constant fear that all this was for nothing – that Shaunesey had already tied the noose around Dad’s neck, and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

It took them a while to get the shuttle up to us, and then more time to get back down, so it wasn’t until the next day when we finally landed. I had the shuttle touch down at my new base in western Massachusetts. Earth’s space to ground traffic control was in tatters. Every major spaceport was gone, destroyed by asteroid kinetic strikes. I was lucky there were even any SSI shuttles left intact. We’d had two, mothballed at an old spaceport in Florida. I took charge of one for the duration, and had the other designated to ferry supplies to the ships in space.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t legal to just land a shuttle anywhere you wanted. You were supposed to radio to one of the spaceports on the ground while you were still in orbit. You’d get clearance, get a course for orbital insertion, and then the computers would pretty much take over for re-entry. But there were no ground controls left to talk to right now. The little Florida base my shuttles took off from wasn’t answering our calls. My shuttle pilot said the place was almost abandoned – everyone evacuated the area when they figured out the enemy ships were targeting spaceports, and they hadn’t come back yet.

So we landed on the big field just outside the building. If someone wanted to fine me for the landing later, they could send me the bill. Right now, I was just as happy having a quick trip back into space sitting right outside my front door.

Our new headquarters on Earth was nowhere near as grand as it the corporate base on Mars. We had no bunkers here, no emergency shelters. On Mars... Well, Dad had designed the base to last. Anything short of a direct nuclear strike, and the lower levels would hold.

This place was like a cross between a fancy resort and an office building. The entire place was well made and well maintained. It had excellent security systems, which was part of why I picked it. And the guards had already swept the place. No bombs, no bugs, nothing they could find. at cropped up, and sales people to handle the sales of cargo we brought in, or purchasing of cargo to ship out.

I stepped down from the shuttle, which looked like the offspring of a jet and a dirigible. I stumbled a bit coming down the ramp – it was going to be a day or two before I had my Earth legs back under me. I watched Sam and steadied his arm once as we came down. It would take him even longer – he’d been out there in low or zero gravity for years. For me, it was less than a year since I’d gone back into space after graduation.

The front doors were glass. I made a mental note to check later if they were ballistic glass. I scanned the woodline, a good distance away but still well within the range of potential snipers. Yeah, I was feeling a little paranoid. But I also knew that some powerful people really were out to get us, so it felt justified. Men in suits with guns at their sides opened the doors for me when I came up to them.

“Thanks,” I said.

One of them nodded in reply. The other said, “Welcome to Earth, sir.”

It was strange being a ‘sir’. That was always Dad, not me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get used to that, but I figured I would need to if I was going to be effective in freeing him.

No sooner had I walked into the main lobby than I heard a familiar voice from off to one side.

“About time you got here,” Kel said.

I stood there gaping for what felt like forever.

She laughed, and the sound broke me from the spell. I ran forward and wrapped my arms around her. She froze for just a moment before she returned the embrace. Her hug was hesitant for a moment. Then it became fierce.

“You’re here. You’re really here,” I whispered. And she was. This was really Kel. I knew her scent, the feel of her, by heart.

I broke away from the hug and stood there staring into her eyes.

“How, Kel?” I asked.

“Yes, do tell,” said Sam. “We all thought you had gone down with the ship.” His voice was dry, but he was beaming.

“I managed to get myself and two crew members out in an escape pod,” she replied. “Have you ever tried to pack three people into one of those things? Horrible! Re-entry was the worst. I honestly thought none of us were going to make it.”

She told us the story quickly, with a promise of more details later when there was time. She and her two bridge crew fired off a last volley after sailing into the teeth of the enemy missiles. They knew their ship was done for; there was no way it would survive the carnage those missiles would wreak. The blast doors had already sealed the bridge off from the rest of the ship, and only one escape pod was still functioning. Even that pod was damaged – but it seemed like the only chance they had. Kel flatly refused to leave crew behind. So they all piled in – literally, piled on top of each other. They punched out just in time, and the force of the explosion kicked the pod a good distance clear of the fighting before it began its automatic descent into the atmosphere.

“It wasn’t until we splashed down that we realized the radio was dead,” Kel said. “We were in somewhere in the Pacific, we knew that much. But we floated there for a couple of days before we were picked up by a U.S. destroyer.”

“Lucky you got picked up by the U.S. forces,” Glenn observed.

“They saw us come down on radar and went to check it out. Took them a while to find us because the radio was dead. No radio, no beacon,” she said.

Once they were back ashore, Kel contacted corporate headquarters and found out I was already on my way down from the ships. Once she told them that she’d been captain of one of our ships, they didn’t waste any time getting her a fast flight over.

“Kel... I can’t tell you how good...” I broke off. My vision was getting a little blurry. “When I saw your ship go up...”

She made a shushing sound and smiled. “Tell me later, Thom,” she said. “Right now, your father is in trouble, right? How do we get him out of this mess? Executing him for his part in this is opportunistic bullshit.”

“I quite agree, miss,” said a voice from the entryway.

I whirled. “Governor Clarke?”

“In the flesh.”

My mind spun. First Kel, then Clarke? This was a day for unexpected arrivals and surprises, I supposed. Then I laughed. I could handle a few good surprises right now. And Clarke was an ally for sure.

“What brings you here?” I asked. “And how did you get here so fast?”

He laughed. “Well, as to getting here, I borrowed your courier ship. Actually, I took temporary control of it for the government. Sadly, that means those wonderful edicts that Shaunesey sent my way are probably still sitting in my desk comp, never to be acted on.” He looked at me. “Your people on Mars are still safe, Thomas, and will continue to be.”

“Thank you. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here, Governor,” I said.

“Please, call me George. Your father does, and you probably should too. I am here, my boy, because a friend needs my help. And whether he knows it or not, your father has always been a friend to me and to Mars. So his need is the need of Mars. And therefore, I am here to help. Or that’s the way I see it, anyway.”

I was a bit confused. “Not that I am ungrateful for any help you can provide, but how exactly can you help? You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction here, and as Shaunesey pointed out, Mars is a United Nations territory; you essentially work for Shaunesey.”

He grimaced. “My ‘boss’ and I do not see eye to eye on this. Or on many things. The old President was much more level headed. I worry that this trial will launch events that President Shaunesey does not entirely understand and cannot predict. Anyway, as for helping? I wasn’t always a Mars politician, Thom. I started my career here on Earth, and I still have a lot of old favors I can call in. I intend to call them all.”

We got to planning right away. Clarke – or George, if I wanted to start calling him that – had already been in to see Dad. They seemed to be treating him well, anyway. We scanned the major newsfeeds. They were full of diatribe from Shaunesey’s office. It was loaded material, blaming Dad in a roundabout way for the attack, the damage, and the loss of life. Pure garbage, but for a frightened people who had no idea what the real story was, giving them a target for their ire was a powerful move.

“The trick will be getting a counter story out there which the media likes as much, or even better, than the ‘party line’ coming out of the United Nations offices,” said George.

“What sort of story did you have in mind?” asked Glenn. I could see his curiosity.

Hell, we were all curious. My best idea so far involved a smash-and-grab attack to yank my father out. Which was a terrible plan because I’d have to knock him out to get home to come with us. George seemed to have something else up his sleeve. We all wanted to know what it was.

“I intend to set Admiral Stein up as a hero,” George said.

“How’s that going to work?” Sam asked.

“The only thing the public loves more than a villain they can hate is a hero they can adore. When a hero comes at a time that the people are desperately afraid, he has more power than the villain. I intend to make your father into such a hero, Thom. He may hate me for it in the end, but it might just save his life.”

He looked around the table. “And make no bones about it, friends. We need him alive as much now as ever. Mars needs him and humanity needs him. Some of those ships got away, and we still have no idea where they came from. This is not over. You were all very brave, but what you fought was just the first battle. Admiral Stein is a rare man, a coupling of visionary insight with a personal honor I have never seen matched. We will need him in the time I see ahead.”

We ended the meeting late, eating food we ordered in while continuing to make lists of media contacts, and setting up interviews. George was on the phone constantly through the last few hours of the session, and he said he would be spending all the next day calling on contacts and setting the stage for the court battle.

“Because it will be a stage,” he insisted, “and the side which performs best will win.”

I finally headed off to my quarters, exhausted. It had been a long day. I laughed, stripping off clothes it seemed I had worn for eons. Hell, it had been a long couple of weeks. The gravity soup on Earth wasn’t helping either. It was exhausting after being used to low or zero gravity for so long. I knew I’d re-adjust in a few days, but until then I was going to be tired a lot.

I lay down, thoughts spiraling through my mind. It had been such a complex day. I’d despaired at finding a way to help my father. And then George had arrived with his plans, and I thought that we just might have a shot after all. If we raised enough public awareness of my father’s heroism in saving the planet, they couldn’t just execute him. The people would rise up.

And then there was Kel. I’d thought she was dead! Now she was back and I felt more conflicted than ever. Holding her in my arms today had been...amazing. I remembered how it felt when she’d hugged me back. My eyes began to tear up a little at the memory. I had no idea how I was going to fix things between us.

But I knew I wanted to.

I was beginning to drift off toward sleep at last when I heard the door to my room quietly slide open. I tensed for a moment, instantly alert again, but remembered that our security would have sounded an alarm if there was an intruder. So who was coming into my room? I picked my head up from the pillow and looked over my shoulder toward the door.

It was Kel. She was standing there, framed in light from the hall, as if uncertain whether she wanted to come in or leave. She was still in the clothes that she’d been loaned by the Navy ship after she’d been rescued, but she’d taken off the beige top, leaving only a white tank top on with the khaki slacks.

“Did I wake you?” she asked. “I’m sorry.” She blushed a little, her cheeks shifting to match her hair in the dim light. “You need your sleep.”

I started to sit up, but she stepped into the room, put her hand on my shoulder, and shook her head. The door closed slowly behind her, cutting off the hallway light. We were left in the faint blue light coming in through my window. She unzipped the slacks and slipped out of them.

I stared. Speech was too damned difficult just then. She folded the slacks and lay them on the bedside table, then slipped under my sheets next to me. She slid in so that her back was against my chest. She gently laid my arm over her and turned her head to face me.

“Life is too short to miss,” she said, then kissed me gently before turning back and laying her head down on the pillows.

We slept well that night, both exhausted from the events of the days before, but determined to make the most of the moments ahead.

Chapter 21

Nicholas

The trial began was two days after George visited me. I wasn’t sure what he had been doing in with those days, but I got an inkling when I was driven by car to the side of the court building and then hurried in a back door. I could hear roaring and chanting over the engine noise from someplace nearby. A massive crowd was gathered to watch the spectacle of my trial. But was the mob for my pardon, or my execution?

Inside, I took my place at the defendant’s bench, and was allowed a brief time to confer again with my lawyers. I had two of them there with me, both men much younger than myself and both seemed very frustrated. I smiled. They were too used to winning to enjoy the high risk involved in this case. You never knew how good you really were until you lose something, and these kids were too hot, too sure. They’d do for today though. Maybe it would even do them some good.

The judges entered the room. An International Criminal Court proceeding had three judges. The center seat belonged to the president of the court, who did most of the speaking. After they had seated themselves, the president’s name was announced as Adrian Thorne.

He was a black man, and older than me. Thorne was bald, with just a bit of hair left at the temples. His mouth was drawn in a grim line, like he really wanted to be just about anywhere except here. It was an emotion I could readily empathize with. He cleared his throat, then spoke.

“Admiral Stein, you stand accused of capitol offenses regarding alleged violations of the Lunar Accord treaty. These are serious crimes, sir. Were you informed of the seriousness of these actions and the possible penalties which may be applied?”

“I was, your honor,” I replied.

“Then sir, how do you plead to these charges?”

“Guilty, your honor.”

“Guilty? Just that?” His eyebrows rose. “Should we move directly to sentencing, then?”

At that, one of my lawyers stood. “Your honor, if it please the court, we would like to present the case in detail, in light of mitigating circumstances which are involved.”

“You may proceed,” Thorne replied. “Be aware that the commission of good deeds, no matter how worthy, in the process of committing a crime does not remove the guilt of that crime.” The young man gulped. I couldn’t tell how much of his planned defense had just been shattered with that statement, but he looked pretty distressed.

My lawyers began telling my story to the court. We’d prepared the statements in advance, and I’d been careful to ensure all the blame for everything illegal landed on my shoulders. I didn’t want anyone else going down with me. They called various witnesses to the stand, among them my son, to corroborate or fill in various parts of the story. As the day waned and it became evident that this would take longer than one court session, Thorne called a recess. “Until tomorrow morning,” he said. “Prisoner will be returned to his cell, and we will proceed from here tomorrow.”

I stood up, and two United Nations guardsmen walked over and stood by my side, guiding me out a side door of the courtroom. Instead of heading out the front, or even out the back door I had entered though, this time we went up a flight of stairs. We had gone up two levels before I asked, “Gentlemen, where are we going?”

“Helipad, sir. We’re taking you out by air. It’s too congested on the ground.”

A few minutes later, we were on the roof, where the cool evening air was a relief after a long day sitting in the courtroom. The sun had gone below the horizon a while before, and full dusk was setting in – that pre-twilight when it’s not yet dark, and you can still see the red blaze where the sun set. I climbed into the waiting helicopter, escorted by my guards. The pilot spun the engine up. We took off, and I finally got a look at the streets.

The building was surrounded. Thousands upon thousands of people were there. I looked as far as I could see down the blocks in each direction as we gained some altitude, and there were people standing in those streets. They held candles, many of them. Maybe most of them. Thousands upon thousands of candles, lighting the streets for miles in every direction.

The guard sitting next to me saw me looking and smiled shyly at me. “You didn’t know, sir?” he asked. His nametag said Rosario.

“No.”

“They’re for you, sir. All of them. There for you. My wife is out there in that crowd somewhere.”

“Thank you,” I whispered almost silently. Those people in the street couldn’t hear me, but I said it anyway and my heart felt lighter for it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Rosario said. “One of those rocks you stopped was aimed at New York. She and I would both be dead without you. So would our two year old son.”

I watched those candles for the entire trip back to the U.N building where my cell awaited. Somehow, it didn’t seem as gloomy as it had before.

Chapter 22

Thomas

I was in awe when I saw what George had wrought, the day of Dad’s trial.

We knew we’d get some supporters, but the raw numbers who showed up surprised us all. Even George seemed a bit taken aback. The crowd was a thousand people strong before Dad was even driven in. By lunch, the media was saying it was more like five thousand. We went out the front doors after the judges called the recess for the night.

“I guess we did it,” Sam whispered, looking out over the mass of candles.

As far as the eye could see, it was nothing but candles. Down every street, in every direction.

“The candles were a nice touch,” George said.

“I just can’t believe a website did all this,” I said, slapping an arm at the mass of people.

“Never underestimate the power of giving people what they want,” George said.

The website was his brain-child. First, he had James transmit down all the data on the battle from the Defender’s log. George uploaded the raw data to Earth’s internet and made freely accessible to everyone. But then, once thousands of people were going over the data, verifying it and talking about it – George unleashed step two. He had a website coded on the fly, which showed the way the Earth would have looked without the Defender and Indefatigable in orbit. He plotted the impact of every asteroid strike, and showed every crater. The website tallied up every dead body mercilessly. Stop by the site, enter your address, and you could see in a few second if you’d have been incinerated by one of those rocks.

Then George and I took that site to the media. They went wild and suddenly everyone was linking to the site. Millions of people visited, that first day. And it was still growing. Someone made a computer generated video of an asteroid hitting New York City. It showed the city, the bright light streaking down from the sky, the asteroid detonating and leveling several city blocks, then the fireball expanding outward from there. It showed the smoldering crater left in the center of the city, the surrounding buildings ruined, half melted, twisted and burning.

The New York Times got the rights to the video and put it on their front page.

The outpouring of gratitude was incredible. Looking out over that sea of candles, I felt real hope.

“We might actually have a chance of beating them,” I said.

“It’s early to say,” George said. His voice was sober, calm, cautious. “But I’d say we’ve given your father a shot, anyway.”

The press that had been covering the crowd turned and made a beeline for the courthouse doors. What was up? It took me a moment to pick faces out of the crowd. President Shaunesey was on his way out the doors and was speaking with the press. I made a face. The man was holding his own little press conference. Doubtless he was going to try to spin things around somehow.

“George, what should we do about him?” I asked. Then I realized George was walking toward Shaunesey’s impromptu stage. What was he doing? I eased closer to listen.

“...and in the end, justice must be done,” Shaunesey said. “If every person who thought they knew what was best for others picked up a gun and used it to exact their own idea of justice, it would be a disaster. No one has the right to be a vigilante. Not even when it is justified. Not even when it saves lives.”

He sounded so calm. So rational. So convincing. Damn! I was hoping he’d be frothing at the mouth like he had been on the radio with Dad. Nothing would win us more points than a man who was clearly out of control leading the opposition. I should have expected as much, though. You didn’t get to Shaunesey’s level in politics without being able to control your emotions. He was good with the crowd, too. I could see some of them nodding.

And then George reached his side. He strode right through the media like he belonged there, and they parted for him. Enough of them recognized the governor of Earth’s most important colony that a bunch of cameras shifted their focus from Shaunesey to him.

“President Shaunesey!” he said, offering his hand for a handshake. Shaunesey took the offered hand, looking not especially pleased to see George just then. Of course, he knew who his opponents were, just as we did.

“Governor Clarke,” Shaunesey said, smiling. “I’d heard you were on Earth. It’s so nice to see you back with us after so long away.”

“Always good to come home for important matters. Like offering you my congratulations, sir!” George said, still pumping Shaunesey’s hand for the cameras.

“If you’ll excuse me, Governor? I should be on my way,” Shaunesey said.

“Of course!” George replied. “I just overheard you talking, and wanted to say – I agree with you completely.”

“I’m so glad,” Shaunesey said, his eyes narrowing.

“Of course we can’t have people taking justice into their own hands. And you, sir, are the best example of that one could ask. Your own wife died during the last war, and you didn’t act the vigilante against the person who killed her.”

Shaunesey froze. His eyes shot daggers at Clarke, and I think that if he’d been carrying a weapon, he’d have used it just then. His eyes seethed with open hatred. And the cameras caught every second of it.

“How dare you?” Shaunesey said.

Immediately, George looked contrite. “I’m so sorry. Reminding you of your loss was thoughtless of me. Please accept my apologies.”

Shaunesey looked like he was about to say something, then looked at the media whose cameras were all trained on the discussion, broadcasting every word. None of the reporters were nodding now. They were intent, their focus trained forward. They knew a hot story when they heard one. Some of them had already whipped out tablets. It would take them about fifteen more seconds to look up where and how Shaunesey’s wife had died. And then the questions would start.

I could see the moment that Shaunesey realized that too. He whirled and stalked away, his guardsmen blocking the reporters from following him to his car. They turned their attention to George instead, who launched into regaling them with the tale of the Battle for Mars. Since he was the first eye-witness for that event they’d been able to interview, they ate it up.

But the seed had been planted. I was willing to bet that by morning the newsfeed columns would be talking about the personal connection between Shaunesey and my father – and asking whether Shaunesey was after justice...or revenge.

Chapter 23

Thomas

The second day was more of the first. I’d already been called as a witness for the defense yesterday, and then cross-examined by Shaunesey’s people. So I was free to sit in the balcony above the court room today and watch the proceedings from a distance.

Today, the prosecution unleashed their case. They had a simple and narrow focus of attack. Where the defense had spent hours proving the good my father had accomplished and the lives he saved, the prosecution stuck to the facts. They dug through records and found out when he first built the R&D station, how he had intended from the moment he started its construction to use it as a base to build armed ships, and how he had then proceeded to build such ships.

Their data piled up as the day went on and they deposed witness after witness. It wasn’t hard. My father never denied any of it, which made their job simple. They just proved that he had broken the law. Clinically, one block at a time, they built a case that was so airtight, my father’s confession was completely irrelevant.

I got a good look at Shaunesey’s face at one point during the day. He sat, watching the proceedings. He managed a pretty good poker face. But I could see the traces of a smile.

The bottom line was simple: Dad was guilty. He’d admitted it. The prosecution had proved it today. The prosecution began wrapping up their case around four in the afternoon. Soon Thorne would adjourn court for the day to return the following day for sentencing, I had a bad feeling nothing had changed, despite all our efforts.

I was frustrated, worried, and scared. The last thing I wanted to do was run into a mass of people on their way out the door so I exited the courtroom early. The prosecution was still making their closing remarks when I silently made my way clear of the room. I wanted nothing so much as to get out ahead of the crush. The hall outside was empty, and I made for the front doors of the building.

As soon as I opened the door, it felt like a thousand flashes were going off in front of me.

The press was there in force. They might have been waiting for Shaunesey or someone else – but they ended up with me. I groaned inwardly.

“Mr. Stein, are you taking over as head if SSI now?”

“Thomas, over here – how are you feeling about your father’s chances?”

I took a deep breath. I could either close the door or step out. What would Dad have done? I didn’t really have to think long for the answer to that. He was never one to hide. I walked outside and faced the cameras.

“Yes, I’m acting CEO of SSI until my father can return to those duties,” I said. “As for his chances – I’m worried. Who wouldn’t be, what with the United Nations president having an axe to grind? But I have faith that people will do what’s right.”

“What do you think is right, Thomas?” one reporter asked.

“The law calls for execution. Some would say that was right,” another one added.

“If my father had followed the law, you’d all be dead,” I said, anger giving my voice strength. “All of you. The judge would be dead. Those people out there,” I waved at the protesters holding candles in the streets. “They’d all be dead.”

“And the rest of you would be slaves to whoever funded those ships my father and I blew to hell out there,” I said.

I shifted my feet, sweeping my gaze across the men and women in front of me. All their cameras and microphones were tracking my face, recording my words. I was never going to have a better moment to do something than right now.

“If a man saves your life, and you turn around and stab him in the back, then you’re an evil person. If a government kills the man that saves a billion lives, then that government is corrupt and evil. The only thing evil men – and evil governments – need to succeed is for good men and women to do nothing.” I paused for a moment, trying to think of something else to say.

“What do you think they should do instead of execution? Prison?” a reporter asked me.

I shrugged. “Guys, I’m not a lawyer. Why prison? What about exile? If Earth doesn’t want him here, send him someplace else.” Actually, that sounded like it had potential. I wondered if there was some way I could run with that, but before I could say anything else, a voice I knew too well interrupted from behind me. Shaunesey had arrived. I looked over my shoulder and there he was – with George beside him.

“Ah, but where would he go, Thomas?” Shaunesey asked. He stepped up next to me. He was just a touch taller than I was, so his eyes looked down on me a little. I glared up at him.

“Out there?” he waved his hand at the sky. “The colony on Luna, the one on Mars, the permanent habitats out in the asteroids – those are all U.N. colonies. Where could he go into exile that was outside of the United Nations?”

And even if they allowed my father exile on one of the colonies, Shaunesey had far too much power over them. He could order Dad harassed. Hell, he wouldn’t even need to order it: cronies looking for advancement would mess with Dad just to get in good with Shaunesey.

George looked grim. He was hearing the same thing I was. He had a tablet in his hand and pressed a button on it. I cocked my head a little at him, but he ignored me. What was he up to now?

“President Shaunesey, what do you see happening here tomorrow?” George asked.

“Sadly, I see only one end tomorrow. Justice,” Shaunesey said. “Admiral Stein has pled guilty to a charge that has only one penalty: execution.”

George nodded. His face grew cold. The hand holding his tablet snapped up, and planted the device squarely in front of Shaunesey’s face.

“Then I have no choice,” George said, “but to present you with this resolution from the Mars Congress.”

Shaunesey took the device and started reading. His face went white, then quickly turned red again. I could hear the reporters buzzing with curiosity as the U.N. president’s face grew a deep mottled red. He threw the tablet to the steps, smashing it.

“You’re mad!” Shaunesey said to George.

“No, sir. Just determined.”

“You have no right to do this. I’ll have you thrown out of office. Arrested. Imprisoned!”

“You can try, sir,” George said. “But we’re on U.S. soil here, and they’re the ones sponsoring our membership.”

I was gaping, trying to keep up with the conversation and failing. “George, what the hell?” I asked.

He turned to face the reporters and I.

“I have just handed President Shaunesey a declaration of independence from the Mars Congress. We are appealing for membership in the United Nations as a nation-state, with the United States of America as our sponsor. And we formally protest the execution of one of our citizens. I have been authorized to initiate trade sanctions against Earth if the U.N. insists upon committing the terrible crime of executing Admiral Nicholas Stein.”

The reporters all but combusted in a frenzy of questions.

I had to hand it to him: it was brilliant. Earth needed Mars. Sanctions from Mars could, quite literally, turn out the lights all around Earth in a very short time. Yanking Mars away from U.N. control gave George some very powerful bargaining chips to play with. Mars would welcome Dad – which gave the courts a possible alternative to execution. No U.N. colony had declared independence yet. There was no precedent for this. But there technically wasn’t any rule against it yet, either. Shaunesey could rail against George for pulling this rabbit out of his hat, but at the end of the day, Mars was where Earth got its uranium from. And for now at least, Mars had most of the available fighting ships – barring the two enemy ones which had limped away, the only ones. It wasn’t like Earth could take the fuel it needed by force.

“So how did you get the United States to sponsor Mars?” I asked George. We were in my aircar. I’d offered George a ride back to the Mars embassy, and he’d taken me up on it. I was glad – both because I enjoyed his company and because we needed to talk.

“Wasn’t hard. Energy, remember?” he replied. “I promised them some preferential treatment. And a little security should it come to sanctions.”

“It was a gutsy move.”

“It seemed the right time.”

“You seriously had that document sitting in your pocket this whole time?” I asked.

“Yes. But the Congress only gave me power to act if your father’s life was actually in immediate danger. Which it seemed to me it was, talking to Shaunesey tonight.”

“Any more tricks up your sleeve?” I asked.

He shook his head. “That was pretty much it, I’m afraid.”

I thought for a moment. It was a bold play. But it was our last powerful move. How would Shaunesey react? What would he do? He couldn’t let Mars break away. It was the cornerstone of his power. While the United Nations controlled Mars, it controlled the flow of energy to Earth, which gave Shaunesey a leash to wield against the nations of the planet. If Mars were to gain independence, it would become humanity’s most powerful political entity overnight. The United Nations couldn’t control Mars the way it could every other nation.

He had to stop the independence movement cold. But how?

There was only one reliable way to do the job. He’d have to cut the head from the snake. Shaunesey would have to eliminate Governor Clarke, one way or another.

“George, you’re in danger,” I said.

“I’ve been in danger since I arrived on Earth,” he replied.

“No, I mean it. Shaunesey can’t let you do this.”

He nodded. “I know.”

“He’s going to attack,” I said. I grabbed my phone and called Sam. “I want another platoon of security men brought to our base. Yes, I’m expecting trouble.” I hung up.

George shook his head. “No, Thom. He wouldn’t dare.”

“He has to. He has no other choice.” The more I thought about it, the more certain I was.

I had another call to make – into space. I dialed a number, which routed my call to the Defender orbiting above us. “James, get the ships ready to move. Things are getting dicey down here.”

“I watched the news,” he replied, his voice a bit fuzzy, a bad connection.

“Stay alert,” I said. “You still have two enemy ships out there.”

“Will do,” he said. “Something else you should know. They’re moving your father to another prison – a max security facility outside of the city.”

“Thanks. Keep eyes on the place. Let me know if anything changes.” From space, James could keep a very close eye on things on the ground.

I cut the connection and tapped my leg, thinking fast. Why move Dad? It was a more secure facility – which made it harder to get him out. Maybe Shaunesey thought we were planning a rescue operation. Which was worth considering, if things went badly enough. But the new prison was outside the city, which meant it was further from prying eyes. Less witnesses around. If Shaunesey wanted to get rid of my father, that was a good first step.

Nothing I could do about that right now, which frustrated me.

“George, I think you ought to come stay with us tonight,” I said.

He thought about it a moment before replying with a smile. “All that extra security? I’d be delighted to accept your hospitality, Thomas.”

I ordered the aircar pilot to change his destination. The sooner we were back at our secure compound, the better I would feel.

Alarms blasted me from a sound sleep. A siren was going off pretty much right above my bed. Flashing red lights lit the room poorly, casting grim shadows everywhere. I tried to roll to my feet, got my legs tangled in the covers, and almost crashed to the floor.

Kel was moving, too. She rolled off the other side of the bed and went to the door. She had something in her hand – a small firearm.

"Where were you keeping the pistol?" I asked incredulously. I tossed her a t-shirt.

She caught it. "What?" she asked. We could barely hear each other over the alarms.

And then, just like that, the noise stopped. The silence was deafening. The red flashing light was still going so I assumed whatever was up hadn't gone away. I slipped on my pants and shoes. I'd lost my shirt somewhere in the tangled mess of sheets. But my phone was still in my pants pocket. I yanked it out, about to dial the number for building security but it was already ringing.

"Thomas, stay put. I've got men on their way down to your room." It was Sam's voice.

"OK," I replied. "What the hell is going on?"

"Someone blew up the Mars Embassy, Thom. It's gone."

I turned that over a few times in my head. OK, so the United Nations had been pissed at Clarke. I doubt they would have gone so far as to officially put out a hit on him. But his official itinerary said he went back to the embassy after leaving the courthouse. As far as the public knew, he had stayed there. If we hadn't suggested he join us here, he'd be dead right now.

"Where's Clarke?" I asked over the phone.

"Men are on their way to his room now."

I had a bad feeling about all this. SSI security was too good to let anyone in with a bomb in tow. We had excellent countermeasures for anyone trying to hit the place with short range missiles, and a spaceship parked overhead that would take out anything longer range. But if the embassy had been hit, we were the next logical target. And there was really only one way they could get to us.

"Expect company, Sam. Arm up. I'd be willing to bet they're already here."

"A raid?"

"They can't afford to hit the embassy and not hit us too. They need to make this a clean sweep, take out all Dad’s allies at once."

Somewhere in the building, an explosion went off. A little one, as such things go – a grenade or something like it.

"That was close," Kel said, still standing by the door

I hung up the phone. "We need to get to the weapons locker, suit up."

“Didn’t Sam say to stay put?”

“Yes,” I said. “But if they’re planting a bomb here like they did at the embassy, staying in our room isn’t going to help much.”

“Point taken,” she said.

She cracked the door and peeked out. "Clear." She rounded the door, leading with her pistol.

The weapons locker had armor and automatic rifles, and my thumbprint would open the door. We had to get there first though - one floor up, which I figured was probably the wrong direction. We'd have seen any ground force coming on the cameras. The best way to sneak up on the base was to come in by air. Probably parachute or gliders of some sort. Which meant the enemy was working their way down through the building, looking for us. The governor especially, and I was probably a priority target too.

Kel led the way down the dark hall, red flashes still lighting our way. The building was ten stories tall, and we were in the eighth floor. The locker was on the ninth.

I hoped the enemy was still on the tenth.

We went up the stairs single file. Kel led the way, because she was armed. If we ran into the enemy, I was useless without a weapon. The stairway was dark and quiet. Our shoes sounded loud on the steps as we climbed to the next floor. But we arrived without incident. Now for the tricky part.

Kel nudged the door open slowly, just a bit. Enough that we could peek down the hallway ahead. The dim emergency lighting casting red shadows across the hall. I peered through the cracked door, but try as I might I couldn't see any signs of movement. I gave Kel a nod.

She pushed the door open, leading with her gun as she stepped off the stairwell. It was only about fifteen feet to the arms room. It looked like we might make it after all.

I’d spoken too soon. A doorway about halfway down the hall opened and men rushed out. They were coming down the stairs from the floor above. They flowed into the hall, moving together with a precision born from long hours of practice. Even an amateur like me could see in an instant that these people were professionals.

We were more than outgunned – we were thoroughly outclassed.

"Move!" I shouted.

I ran the last two steps to the arms room and slapped the thumbprint scanned. It flashed green and the door popped open. We all but dove behind the heavy steel door as gunfire blazed down the hall. Bullets hammered the other side of the door like a heavy rain. I pulled it closed behind us. We were safe – for the moment, anyway.

Sam was yelling at me in my ear radio. "Are you guys all right?"

I touched the earpiece to activate the mike. "Yes, we're fine. But we’re pinned down in the ninth floor arms room."

"I have security on the way right now," he said. "Just hang on!"

I wasn't sure we had time. The men outside couldn’t open the door easily – they would need my thumb for that. But they seemed like they knew what they were doing, which meant they probably had the supplies with them to blow any locked doors they ran into. This room wasn’t designed to resist explosives – it was just a lockable storage room before we took over the building and repurposed it as an arms locker. They were coming in after us and it wouldn’t take them long. I scanned the racks to see if there was something that might help us survive an extra minute or two. An answer immediately presented itself. I scooped up a handful a fist sized cylinders.

"Do you even know how to use those?" Kel asked.

I grinned at her. "Pull pin, throw at enemy."

How hard could it be, right?

I pulled the pin from the first grenade, opened the door a crack and tossed it out. A moment later there was a flash of light and a boom that I could feel through the door. I grabbed two more and tossed them out too.

More booms.

"Just need to keep their heads down heads down for a few more minutes," I said.

"Grenades should do it," Kel said. She was strapping on body armor.

I had to admit her method was probably safer than mine. I rolled out another grenade anyway.

Another explosion.

By this time, I figured that I either had the bad guys pinned down, or very mad at me. Maybe a little bit of both. But I was running low on grenades.

"Where are those men?" I asked into my radio.

Out in the hall, I could hear the enemy troops moving again. I was down to my last grenade, and we were pretty much out of time. I picked up the last grenade and made ready to toss it out. The others have been gray – this one was red. I didn't have enough time to ponder the significance. I just pulled the pin and tossed the thing out into the hall as hard as I could. Gunfire pinged against the door. I yanked my arm back inside and slammed the door shut.

And then the grenade exploded.

It turned out that red grenades are high explosive. They were a little different from the ‘flash bangs’ that I’d been throwing before. Like, roughly ten times as powerful. The first few grenades I threw were like really big firecrackers. The last one was more like a stick of dynamite. A really big stick of dynamite. The force of the blast picked me up off the floor and rattled my teeth. My ears were ringing. I felt dazed, confused.

“What happened?” I asked. But I couldn't hear my own voice.

Kel was saying something. I couldn't hear her, either. She fell to the floor when the explosion went off and was picking herself back up.

More gunfire rattled by outside. Even though I couldn't hear it, I could feel the impact the bullets made when they slammed into the walls or floors. I leaned hard against the door, hoping to keep anyone from opening it, but it sounded like there was quite a fight outside – our security finally showing up to take out the enemy troops.

My hearing began to return.

"You idiot!" Kel said. But she was laughing when she said it, which sort of took the sting away. "Couldn’t tell an explosive grenade apart from other ones?" she asked.

"Obviously not." I said, groaning from the headache. "Somehow, I missed that part of the space captain’s handbook.”

We both laughed.

Kel tossed a chunk of body armor at me. I caught it, fumbled and almost dropped it, but managed to hang on.

"Get dressed," she said.

I started getting suited up. Just because most of the bad guys were dead, didn't mean they all were. And I was way past thinking we'd worn out our welcome here on Earth. It was time to get out of here. I strapped on the last chunks of body armor, pulling the straps tight with hard jerks. Yes, I was angry. I'd been born on this planet. I'd risked my life to save the people here. And then this?

"Thomas," crackled Sam's voice in my earpiece.

"Go," I replied.

"Just got word from our eye in the sky." That would be James, using the ships's cameras to keep an eye on things from space. "Three military grade airships just dropped in on the prison they moved your Dad to earlier."

The Mars embassy was in ruins. They'd failed to take us out here, but not for lack of trying. I had to assume that those airships were a third prong in their assault. They were after Clarke. And me. And my father.

"Sam, get the shuttle ready to go," I said.

"Already done. We're ready to take off soon as you're aboard."

I grabbed one of the assault rifles from the rack and a handful of magazines. Kel was already armed. "Ready?" I asked.

She brought her rifle to her shoulder and aimed it at the door.

"Fire teams, Thomas Stein here. Exiting the arms locker on the ninth floor," I said into my radio. No sense getting shot by my own people.

"Copy, Mr. Stein. We have two men outside your door who will escort you clear of the building."

"Good. I'll need..." I thought a second. Three military airships might mean up to three squads of troops. I couldn't take that many on the shuttle, but I could grab a squad. "One squad of men to go with me. Volunteers only. Tell them it might be a while before we can get them home."

"Understood, sir," the voice replied.

I opened the door. Two shapes dressed in black flanked the doorway on either side. They were armed and alert, covering the hallway in both directions. Looking down the hall, I got my first real glimpse at the devastation my grenade had wreaked. Small fires guttered on the floor and ceiling and bits of shrapnel had done blast damage up and down the hall.

I'd been lucky on the timing of my throw. The enemy must have been rushing the door when I tossed it out. Five bodies lay on the floor, all of them showing signs of having been too close to the explosion. I couldn't tell for sure in the dim light, but it looked like a couple of them also had bullet wounds. So the explosion hadn't killed them all outright - some had been taken down by one of our security teams after they were wounded.

"Sir," one of the shadows next to me said, "We need to get you out of here. The building is not secure, sir."

I took that as my cue to stop gawking and move. One of the men led the way. Kel and I followed close behind, and the other shadow followed. We took the stairs, spiraling down and away from the fighting at a quick walk. Behind us, I could hear a couple of loud bangs and the chatter of weapons firing. It galled me to turn and run. But time was wasting, and if I was right every second counted for my Dad.

The guy ahead of us opened the door that led outside and stepped out, leading with his rifle. I followed right behind him. He made it only a few steps toward the shuttle before he jerked back like he'd been slapped. He fell backwards onto the grass and stared up at me with a ruined face, a gaping hole yawning wide where his cheek and eye had been.

I dropped to the ground just in time. More bullets whizzed by over my head. I tried to see where the shots were coming from. There! Muzzle flashes, over by those trees. I brought my rifle up and returned fire.

The shuttle started humming, and the ramp lowered. Four men ran down the ramp, firing into the night. One of them had something a little bigger than a rifle – a small rocket streaked toward the enemy position and exploded near them.

"Come on, sir!" one of them shouted. The security man behind me was already up, heaving me up from the ground by the back of my armor. I landed more or less on my feet and sprinted for the shuttle.

Kel and I pounded up the ramp, which started closing as soon as we were on it. I could feel the engines thrumming beneath my feet, building more power.

"We're aboard, Sam. Get us the hell out of here!" I said into my radio.

The shuttle blasted into the sky.

Chapter 24

Nicholas Stein

Something was up. I could feel it. I hadn’t been returned to the cell I’d occupied before. Instead, they flew me out to a new prison, outside the city. The airship landed and I was rushed into a wing that looked damned abandoned. I mean, I knew Shaunesey was putting a lot of importance on my capture and trial – but from what I was seeing, he’d somehow cleaned out an entire wing of a maximum security prison just for me. The expense and effort was insane.

The guards who tossed me in the cell refused to speak in front of me, but they practically vibrated with tension. Something had changed. Had my son done something stupid? Maybe Shaunesey was worried about a last-minute rescue operation. And he might not be wrong to worry – even I was concerned. It was the sort of thing Thomas might try. I didn’t want him to throw his life away trying to save me. It wasn’t worth it. If they executed me, as it seemed likely they would, I needed someone to carry on for me. Those enemy ships still had a secret base out there somewhere. And the massive funding for their operation had to have come from a backer on Earth. I needed Thomas free. But how could I communicate that with him? I couldn’t speak with him, hadn’t had a moment alone with him since I’d left the ship to surrender myself.

So I sat on my cot, hoping Thomas would play things smart, and wondering what was going on that had everyone so worried. They let me sit and stew for a few hours, but then I heard the clang of doors opening down the hall, one security barrier after the next opening. Someone was coming my way.

“Sit on your bunk, and stay away from the door,” called a voice from the hallway. I was already sitting on my bunk, on the far side of the small cell from the door, so I simply stayed put.

My immobility must have satisfied the guard. The door buzzed, and opened inward. A guard came into the room, followed closely by Shaunesey and an Asian man I didn’t recognize. My eyebrows shot up. This was unexpected.

“Leave us,” Shaunesey told the guard.

“Sir, I don’t think...” the man replied.

“I said leave us!” Shaunesey roared. His face went from calm to red with anger in a heartbeat. The man was barely keeping himself under control.

The guard ducked his head and fled. Smart man. I wished I could do the same.

Shaunesey nodded to the man he’d brought in with him. “Have you met my vice president?” he asked.

“I haven’t had the privilege,” I replied.

“Choi Fan-Lei, meet Nicholas Stein,” Shaunesey said.

“Pleased,” Choi replied in a soft voice.

I took stock of this stranger. He moved with the grace of a martial artist. His face seemed young – except for his eyes, which looked much older. I couldn’t peg his age very well. He was dressed in an immaculate black silk suit, with a white shirt and thin white tie. He stood almost completely still, and every motion he made looked prepared, planned.

“To what do I owe the honor?” I asked.

“That damned judge isn’t going to have you executed, thanks to Clarke’s meddling. That’s forced my hand tonight, damn him,” Shaunesey said. “So the good governor’s met with an accident already. Your son probably has by now as well. And now it’s your turn.”

He drew a pistol from his coat pocket.

I stood up, lifting my eyes from the pistol to his face. These might be my last few breaths, but I was damned if I was going to sit down for them. I had to know what he was talking about. “What have you done to Thomas?” I asked.

Shaunesey looked down at his watch, then back up at me. “Should be about done by now,” he said. “Choi, call and check, will you?”

Choi pulled a phone from his coat, pressed a button. He said a few words that I couldn’t make out. Then he listened for a moment, and returned the phone to his pocket.

“He’s escaped in a shuttle. We’re tracking its flight path, but it looks like the Stein boy is headed for his ships in orbit,” Choi said. “Our men report that Governor Clarke was with him, not at the embassy.”

“Damn it!” Shaunesey shouted. “How the hell did they escape?”

My heart soared. Thomas was in the clear. No matter what happened to me, he was away. Once he was within range of covering fire from our ships, there was nothing on Earth that could take him out.

“So, Patrick," I asked. “Was it you behind the whole thing? I’d never have thought it of you.”

“Me?” Shaunesey said he leveled the gun straight at my chest. I had never seen a barrel look wider. “It's you. Always you. You killed my wife, and they gave you a medal for it. I’m not letting you do it again.”

Patrick and I had a very long history. Sometimes, it felt like Patrick Shaunesey was my penance for the crimes of my past. And they had been crimes. I was angry when China blew the Lunar base apart. They killed tens of thousands. People I knew and cared about had died there.

But nothing they did gave me the right to kill a billion of their people in return. Since that day, I’d been torn between the grim certainty that a soldier needs to perform his duty and horrified regret I had not found a better way.

I'd researched Patrick after he began dogging me back in those early days. He was a good man – as politicians went anyway. He had been a solid and stalwart representative of his people – at least until the nuclear explosions I set off over Beijing killed his wife, who was there on a diplomatic mission.

I could say I was sorry until the stars died, but nothing I said would ever make a damned bit of difference. Nothing I said would ever bring her back. And no forgiveness he gave would ever make up for all of those other lives.

“Maybe it's best this way,” I said. I opened my hands at my sides. “Do what you think is right, Patrick. That’s what I did.”

I saw him falter a little bit as I said those last words. Because deep down, the one thing Patrick Shaunesey wanted least was to be like me. Choi must've seen it as well. Even as the barrel of Patrick's weapon dipped, Choi sprang into action. His arm slashed down, striking Shaunesey's quadricep. Patrick had just enough time to look at Choi, say “What the hell?”.

Then he collapsed to the ground, quivering and gasping for air.

Choi stood over his body, a hypodermic needle in his hand, smiling like a malevolent spider.

“I trust you will forgive me a bit of theater, Admiral?” Choi asked. “Because some theater will be required here. To tell the story right, you understand.”

I started to move toward him, but before I could take a step he knelt and picked up Shaunesey’s weapon from where it clattered to the ground when he fell. Choi rose smoothly back to his feet. He had a very steady hand, and the barrel was aimed directly between my eyes. I stopped moving.

“And what will this theater involve?” I asked.

I figured it would do no harm to keep talking, and someone might stumble along. Playing for time gave him time to make a mistake. Why had he attacked Shaunesey? My gut suddenly screamed that the man standing in front of me was the source of all of our recent troubles. The pirates, the attacks... Everything spilled from this man's designs. If that was the case, I probably wasn't going to live much longer. But I found myself more amused than sad. I'd certainly thrown a wrench in his plans. And I'd be leaving behind a son that I was fairly sure could take up my place, and a Mars that was willing to stand up for itself. They were worse ways to go.

“You attacked the president. Your long-standing animosity will make the story believable,” Choi said. “The president was armed, pulled his gun, shot you – but had already suffered a heart attack, which will prove fatal before help could arrive.”

I looked down at Shaunesey, gasping for breath on the floor. “The injection?” I asked.

“Will never be detected,” Choi said.

I took a deep breath, measuring the distance between us. I’d seen the man move. There was no way that I could close the gap before he got off a shot. At this range, he couldn’t miss, and one shot was probably all he would need. Something deep inside me relaxed. This was all about to be over at last. Choi would shoot, I’d die, and the long run would be over. I was curious about something, though.

“If I’m about to die here, answer me a question first?”

Choi tilted his head sideways a bit. He didn’t nod assent. But he hadn’t shot me yet, either.

“I’m betting it was you behind the so-called pirates. Why?”

He seemed lost in thought for a moment. I could see his discipline warring with his desire for recognition. I was one of the only people alive that he could afford to brag to, after all. First, because I’d been his opponent – and he wanted me to know, the way a chess player would call out ‘mate in three moves’ to an opponent.

Second, because he was going to kill me anyway.

“For control,” he said. “Because Mars is the source of energy, and therefore power. Which meant that control will inevitably migrate away from Earth – away from the billions here – to Mars, unless it is controlled.”

“Which you can’t do without armed ships,” I said.

“Precisely. And as president of the United Nations, I will oversee the construction of a fleet of ships to defend our interests in space.”

“To consolidate your power.”

“Yes,” he said. “And now, regretfully, you must die.”

He took aim.

But before he could pull the trigger, we heard gunshots from somewhere else in the prison. He jumped at the noise and turned back toward the open door behind him. During that moment of distraction, Shaunesey gave a loud grunt and kicked out hard. His foot connected with Choi’s knee. That was my moment, and I took it. I rushed him.

Choi wobbled, but didn’t fall. He saw me moving and fired. I felt the flash of pain as the bullet entered my side. I’d been shot before. I knew I could keep going at least another few seconds. My fist connected with Choi’s jaw, the crack loud as a whip snapping. He dropped the pistol and it clattered to the floor. I hammered two more blows into his midsection before the pain caught up with me. I was too slow to stop his counterattack – he jabbed out with the fingertips of his left hand, stabbing into my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

I kicked him hard in the chest, trying to get some distance, a moment to get my breath back. All his breath went out with a rush. Choi backed away from me, cautiously. He wiped blood from his mouth, and seemed shocked when he saw the red on his hand.

“No matter. You die anyway,” he said. He took the phone from his pocket and said something in Chinese into the device. My Chinese was rusty, so I only caught one word: bomb. Then he backed out of the room and slammed the door shut.

I sagged to my knees, eyes tight shut, hand over the spot just under my ribs where the bullet had gone in. I knew I was bleeding, and the pain was starting to settle in. I gritted my teeth, fighting to stay sharp.

I opened my eyes. In my pain and shock, I’d forgotten about the gun.

Shaunesey hadn’t.

He was holding it. He wasn’t looking well. He’d gone from red-faced to utterly pale. I didn’t know how the man was hanging on. The pain of the heart attack must have been excruciating.

“If you hate me that much, have done with it,” I said, panting. “I’m tired of staring into the barrel of that pistol.”

For a second, it looked like he might. Then he lowered the weapon. His hand relaxed and the gun slipped from his fingers.

“Nah,” he said. “I still hate you, Stein. You took everything from me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He shuddered. His eyes closed a moment, then opened again. “I don’t care if you’re sorry.”

“Then why?” I asked.

“Because I love Earth more than I hate you,” he said. “Stop him.”

Then he died.

Chapter 25

Thomas

We thought it would be best top avoid the airships so we skipped the landing pad entirely. The shuttle was just small enough to fit on the rooftop of the main prison building. We smashed the hell out of the structure in the process. I was past caring so long as the shuttle remained spaceworthy.

Kel and George stayed aboard to watch the ship and keep the engines warm. Sam and I went with our four security guys. One of them kicked open a rooftop door, and all four started moving down the stairs, rifles at the ready. I followed and Sam reluctantly followed me. He didn’t really want to be here and for a moment, I considered sending him back to the ship. But we might need his skills.

We took the stairs all the way to the bottom. That was where the prisoners were held, according to the schematics Sam called up. The door was locked but Sam was able to hook up a hand scanner and pop the lock in under a minute.

Our men pushed ahead.

“Where’d you learn how to do that, anyway?” I asked Sam.

“You don’t want to know,” was all he would say.

We ran into the first dead guards just outside that door. Two men – both in beige uniforms, both shot in the center of the forehead. Clean kills. Not the result of a fight, then. These were assassinations, by men who knew what they were doing.

“Don’t hesitate,” I said. “Anyone we see down here is probably an enemy.”

The men continued their sweep forward. We entered the cell block and found two more bodies by the door. We had to be close. I kept hoping we’d make contact, praying we’d run into the enemy shooters. Because if we ran into them now, it might not be too late. We might reach them before they got to Dad.

My men rounded the corner and I got my wish. I saw them open up fire. One of them was hit and fell down. The others kept firing, advancing as they went. I rounded the corner, following close behind them. Men in black body armor crouched in doorways down the hall. Two had already fallen to the floor. I carefully placed aimed shots as I walked, and took one of them out.

Something belted me in the chest. It felt like someone hit me there with a hammer. I just walked forward and moved my muzzle from one target to the next, squeezing the trigger.

Then I was out of targets. Some of the enemy had fled, down the hallway ahead and around a corner. But one of our guys was down. I went back to help and realized my own chest was on fire. I could barely breathe. I slumped against the wall, sliding down until my butt hit the floor with a thump. One of the men was there immediately, holding a mask over my mouth. Air hissed through a hose, and I got a couple of lungfuls of high flow oxygen.

“I’m OK,” I said, my breaths finally coming more easily. I looked down at my chest, expecting to see bright red. But – nothing. The chest plate had a huge dent in it, but the round hadn’t penetrated. I was going to have some nasty bruises, but it looked like I’d be fine.

I got slowly back to my feet. My chest still hurt, and taking too deep a breath was painful, but I could manage. One of the men was dead. I realized sadly I’d never learned his name. I leaned over, and ripped the nametag from his shirt. Brenden, it read.

“Thank you, Brenden,” I said.

I shouldered my rifle again. “Let’s go.”

We rounded the corner just in time to see a security door on the far side closing. Four of those black-armored goons were inside, along with an Asian man in a suit. The suited guy sketched a salute with his hand, then turned and walked away. His men followed him.

“Sam, get that door open!” I said. We surged down the hall at a double time. We were moving so fast, I almost missed the one occupied cell on the block – but I saw a light inside one of the rooms and paused just a moment to check.

Dad was inside. He lay on the floor, bleeding.

Decisions. If we hurried, we might still catch the bad guys before they got away. But Dad might die while we were chasing them. He needed help. I didn’t hesitate more than a second or so.

“He’s here,” I said. I opened the door and went inside. “Dad. Hang on.”

There was a body on the floor next to him, holding a gun loosely in a dead hand. Shaunesey. Had he shot Dad? Who was the other guy?

Dad was bleeding from his side, just under his liver. I had to hope nothing too vital had been damaged, because we were a long way from a safe hospital. As soon as I touched his shoulder, he opened his eyes.

“Bomb,” he said. “Need to go.”

I stood back up. “Sam, help me with Dad. He says there’s a bomb – we need to move!” I figured we might have as long as it took for the bad guys to get clear in their airships. Not long. And there were a lot of stairs between us and the way out.

With Sam and I helping Dad, we made good time, retracing our steps. I grimaced as we passed Brenden’s body. I could tell the troops wanted to take him with us. I did too. I just wasn’t sure we had time.

Their eyes pleaded with me. Nobody wanted to be left behind on the battlefield.

“Do it,” I said. “Don’t fall behind.”

Two of them grabbed his body. The other led the way, keeping guard for the rest of us. If the enemy attacked right now, we were screwed. But we made the stairs without incident. From there, it was the longest climb of my life, wondering with each step if the bomb was going to go off before we could make safety.

One floor away from the top, I opened a link to the shuttle. “Kel, we’ve got Dad. He says there’s a bomb in the prison.”

“We’ll blast away as soon as you’re aboard,” she said.

“Be ready,” I replied, panting with the effort of getting my father up the stairs.

We made the roof. George was there on the shuttle ramp, and together we all wrangled Dad’s unconscious form and Brenden’s body onto the ship. As soon as the ramp raised, Kel hit the thrusters. I watched behind us as we rose away from the Earth.

We weren’t a mile up when the nuke detonated inside the prison. They’d only waited so long to detonate it because they needed to get clear of the blast area with their airships. Our shuttle was a good deal faster. We arced high over the planet, bound for our ships in orbit. I was done with this place.

Dad was still unconscious, but stable. We held orbit another day, making sure he was going to be OK, but it was clearly time to go. Earth was falling apart. A nuke had gone off, less than fifty miles from one of the biggest cities in the United States. The U.N. President was missing, and the Vice President said he was killed by Mars-affiliated commandos during a rescue mission for the notorious Mad Bomber.

The radio squawked day and night with calls for us to surrender. I ignored the thing until we were just about ready to leave. Then I made a call myself.

“Admiral Perrault,” I said, once the man’s image appeared on my screen. “Thanks for taking my call.”

“What can I do for you, Thomas?” he asked. His words implied he wanted to help, but his eyes were wary.

“We’re boosting for Mars shortly. Governor Clarke wanted to assure the U.S. that the deal he brokered still stood, if they want.”

“I’ll pass that along. Anything else?” he said, voice sharp, eyes cold.

“We didn’t do it, Admiral.” I meant the nuke. He knew it.

His eyes softened a little. “I know that.” He sighed, looked down. “Things are going to be a mess down here for a while. You’re not officially up on any charges right now, Thomas...”

“But that could change. And Dad?”

“On the U.N. most wanted list. Dead or alive. The reward is impressive.”

“Charming. If I see him, I’ll pass that along,” I said.

He laughed, his face warming some. “You do that, son. Oh, and if you see the old dog? Tell him he owes me a bottle of damned good bourbon. Lost a bet over him.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” Perrault said. “I bet he’d be free a day earlier than he was. Lost the pool we had running on him.”

I grinned. “Sorry about that, Admiral.”

“Fly safe.”

I closed the comm link.

I looked out through the view screen. Earth was below us, blue and white, slowly spinning by. I’d been watching the news feeds ever since we were safe in space. Choi was going to win control of the United Nations. He had the power – had the connections, the resources, the finances, whatever it was that it took. I didn’t know those halls of power, but I knew how patterns worked, and I could see the web of his control strengthening hour by hour.

He’d already been named President. How long would he hold the position? Usually, it was voted in a year at a time. I had a feeling Choi planned to be in power for longer than that.

Mars had declared independence, but what did that mean? There were fifty thousand people living on Mars and over ten billion on Earth. Sure, we had the advantage for now. But there was no way that would last. Earth needed the power from Mars uranium. Even if we sent them all they wanted, they’d never leave Mars free. A free Mars was a Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of every nation on Earth.

I started up the Connie’s drives and called the other ships. “Everyone ready?”

“Excalibur’s set,” James said.

“Defender is go for burn,” Glenn replied.

“Hang on then, travelers,” I said. “We’re going home.”

The drives kicked in, gently because we had wounded, and damaged ships. It would take us a few extra days to reach Mars, but that was all right. The Connie came about under my hands, the view out the front spinning to show me stars. I pressed a button and the view flashed to a rear facing camera. There was Earth again. I could see the whole planet now, a round sapphire floating on black velvet.

Kel’s hand was on my shoulder. “We’ll be back,” she said.

“I’m not so sure,” I said.

“Will you miss it?”

“Maybe? I think Earth stopped being home for me when it tried to kill my father. What about you?”

She shook her head. “I was born out here. All this,” she waved her hands around, trying to encompass all of space, “is home to me.”

I’d forgotten. I’d spent most of my life on Earth. Kel had only been there for short visits. To her, Mars was home in a way that Earth never would be. I wondered how many others were like that. How many people thought about space as their first home, and Earth as someplace far away where other people lived?

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. “We’ll be OK.”

I shook my head. “OK isn’t enough. Not anymore. George took a huge step back there, and there’s no going back. We’re free, or nothing. There’s no middle road.”

Earth shrank in the viewer, growing smaller by the second. It was just one orb in all the dark, after all. The smaller that orb grew, the less attached I felt to it. I felt like a dagger sliced through a cord, sawing at it with each second. My eyes were damp, but no tears fell.

I pressed the button on the console again and the view flashed around to the stars ahead of us once more. Kel left the bridge, but I sat there a long while, watching the stars as the ship’s drive carried us out into the black.

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