Peter Hamilton - Judas Unchained

“Thank you, Dimitri,” Wilson said. “The Institute’s views will be brought before the War Cabinet. For now, we are planning a conventional assault against Hell’s Gateway. Anna?”

“Manufacture of Moscow-class ships is accelerating,” she said. “Now that we’re mass-producing all the hull sections and components on the Big15 it takes about a fortnight to assemble one from scratch. The process is a lot more modular than it was even with the scoutships. Currently we have twelve of them operational, but that’s due to change rapidly. Our ninth assembly platform is now complete; sections for platforms ten through fifteen are being fabricated, and should be functional within another month. Linking the platforms directly to Kerensk via wormhole has been a real boon as far as construction is concerned. We’ve trodden on Chairwoman Gall’s toes in the process, but she’s been diplomatic enough to keep quiet; she realizes that High Angel can’t insist on a monopoly in these times. Besides, most of the docking station crews are still dormitoried here.”

“How many ships can we send against Hell’s Gateway?” Patricia asked.

“By the end of this week: fifteen. If we wait another week, there will be twenty-two. If you wait a further week, we should have commissioned over forty, and after that we’ll be churning out forty-five every fortnight.”

“How many do you need for a successful strike, one that closes Hell’s Gateway?”

“We estimate a minimum of twenty,” Mac said. “They have a formidable presence in that star system. Hell’s Gateway is only a part of it. There are all the generators for the wormholes leading to the Lost23, which are still transferring a colossal amount of equipment to the Commonwealth. During the invasion, we estimate they deployed over forty-five thousand ships against us. If they’re planning a second invasion, we must assume that at least that many are currently stationed there. Probably a lot more.”

“Twenty of our ships against forty thousand?” Patricia said. She sounded worried.

“We won’t be engaging them the way we did above the Lost23,” Wilson said. “The Moscow-class will stand off and launch their Douvoir missiles from the edge of the Hell’s Gateway star system. No slower-than-light ships will ever reach them.”

“Twenty ships?” Patricia said.

“Minimum,” Mac said.

“Fair enough, another week is acceptable.”

“It must be longer,” Dimitri said. “You cannot throw everything we have at them, there has to be a reserve. The Primes will retaliate.”

Patricia gave him a fractious glance.

“Dimitri is correct,” Rafael said. “This has to be balanced correctly. Much as I hate to say it, we have to take the prospect of failure into account. As I am responsible for defending the remaining Commonwealth planets I must ask for some ships to be assigned to protective duties.”

“Wilson?” Daniel asked.

“I agree, it is the prudent course. I know people are impatient for us to retaliate, but this is not something we should lay open to political expediency. The guerrilla warfare is progressing well. We can take the opportunity to increase the number of troops on the Lost23 while we carry on building ships. We know that strategy is working well, intensifying it should keep the Primes preoccupied.”

“How long?” Patricia asked.

“A fortnight,” Anna told her. “That will give us twenty ships to cover each duty. That should be enough.”

“All right, I’ll take that to the President.”

Oscar remained in his seat as the others said their good-byes and left the office. Trepidation was making his stomach churn, a sensation far worse than any of the aftereffects of freefall exposure. He didn’t like the idea of lying to Wilson just to cover his own ass, not with something this serious. But Wilson certainly had to be told, and he’d probably figure out who else was involved.

Mac and Anna were the last to leave. Oscar caught her giving Wilson a quick little shrug before the door closed.

“Drink?” Wilson asked.

“Yeah, thanks. Whiskey, with some ice, no water.”

Wilson gave him a slightly surprised look, but walked across the white office to the spherical drinks cabinet. “Well, you’ve certainly got me curious. An official and private meeting.”

“We have a problem,” Oscar said.

Wilson gave a distant grin as he poured the whiskey into a crystal tumbler.

“Houston.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Sorry, go on.”

Oscar accepted the drink, despising himself for needing liquid courage. “A little while ago I was approached by someone who was suspicious about various aspects of the Second Chance mission.”

“You, too, huh?”

“They talked to you?” Oscar found that incredible.

“Let’s just say there’s a lot of politics going on around here. What did this someone want from you?”

“It’s easier if I show you. Here.” He told his e-butler to access the log recordings directly from the secure navy database. The portal on Wilson’s desk projected the recording from the shuttle as it started its journey to the Watchtower.

“See the main dish?” Oscar asked as he froze the image. “Someone was signaling to the Prime homeworld.”

“Son of a bitch.” Wilson dropped into his chair, staring at the picture that filled half of his office. “Are you sure?”

“We both know the dish shouldn’t be deployed at this stage in the mission. I did some rough alignment calculations, and that’s the direction it’s pointing.”

“Son of a bitch. Who the hell was it?”

“I don’t know. Our records are quite comprehensive, but whoever ordered the dish to deploy was clearly circumventing our management programs. This is about the only proof we’ve got it ever happened.”

“I don’t understand: a traitor? Why? What possible motive could there be?”

“There’s a lot of fairly wild theories floating around in the unisphere,” Oscar said carefully. “We never did understand why the barrier came down as soon as we arrived. And I think we can be pretty certain now what glitched our communications with Bose and Verbeke.”

“Someone in the crew,” Wilson whispered in shock. “But I picked them all…we picked them. You and I.”

“Yeah,” Oscar said miserably.

“Christ.” Wilson was still staring at the picture of the dish as if it were some kind of physical threat. “This doesn’t make any sense. Nobody benefits from a war. In any case nobody knew what was inside the barrier.”

“The Silfen probably did.”

“No. Not them. I don’t believe that.” He turned to Oscar, eyes narrowing.

“Who asked you to look into this?”

Oscar held his gaze. “The Guardians of Selfhood. Someone I used to know was the contact.”

“Fuck, Oscar! Those bastards tried to destroy the Second Chance.”

Oscar nodded at the picture. “They might have had good reason.”

“The Starflyer alien they believe in? You can’t be serious.”

“Maybe I’m not,” Oscar said warily. “I don’t know. But somebody on board was acting against us in the most terrifying way imaginable. We’re fighting a war because of that flight, a war we might lose, and all that entails for us as a species. As you said: Where’s the motive? It’s not political.”

“No, you’re right, it’s not. There has to be some kind of outside influence. Whoever did this is betraying us as a species. Son of a bitch, that’s just so hard to accept.”

“I know.”

“Have you told the Guardians about this yet?”

“No, of course not. Look, I’ll make this easy for you; I’ll resign.”

“Like hell! We need to find out what the fuck is going on, and do it fast. We’re about to send our fleet to Hell’s Gateway; and God help us if that goes wrong.”