Gary Gibson - Stealing Light

‘ Piri ,’ she spoke into the air. ‘Respond only to voice commands from now on.’

‘Acknowledged.’

It all seemed so clunky, so difficult, with none of the speed of thought reaction she was used to. But it would have to do.

‘Primary systems are currently down on board the Hyperion. I want you to seek out any localized automatic or override systems for the cargo bay doors. Then open them and prepare to exit the Hyperion on my command.’

‘Acknowledged.’

Dakota waited in silence as seconds stretched into minutes. Meanwhile she ripped up an old shirt and used it to bind her shoulder and help stop the bleeding where Kieran had wounded her during their scuffle in the dark.

Finally, laboriously, the cargo-bay doors began to swing open.

Dakota sank back into an acceleration couch and guided the Piri out through the doors, slowly remembering half-forgotten piloting skills that didn’t involve the use of her Ghost implants. After slipping out of its cradle, the Piri moved inexorably towards stars framed by the huge open bay doors. The Hyperion slowly fell away behind them, and she instructed the Piri Reis to set a course for the inner system.

If anyone on board the Hyperion, or its sister ship, was bothering to pay any attention, it wouldn’t have been difficult to shoot them out of the sky. But if the Senator and his buddies were still alive, maybe they were too busy trying to stay that way.

Arbenz did not relish having to sacrifice the lives of the three troopers.

But they were soldiers and, more, they were Freeholders, men brought up to appreciate the necessity of sacrifice in the face of war. Without his personal command, the Freehold forces arrayed in the Nova Arctis system would fall into disarray. It was therefore militarily essential that he himself stay alive. The same went for Kieran, the most deadly weapon the Senator possessed.

Gardner was another matter. He should have been considered entirely dispensable but, unfortunately they needed the technical and financial support he represented.

That meant sacrificing a trooper, which was no small matter. For that, Gardner would find himself paying a price one day.

One of the troopers resisted, and Kieran had to slay him against his will. Another looked like he meant to resist, but Kieran’s dispatching of him was swift and merciful and clean. The third had a look in his eyes the Senator had seen before, during Challenges. It was the look of a man who knew with absolute certainty he was about to die.

As the last of the air drained out of the Hyperion, Gardner, Kieran and the Senator hurriedly set to pulling the combat suits off the three dead troopers and putting them on. The suits were of a standard size, but designed to expand, contract and reshape themselves according to the physique of the individual who wore them.

Arbenz was pleased to feel his own suit fit itself tentatively around his contours, adjusting itself for maximum comfort and freedom of movement. All three of them next pulled on light, foldable helmets.

He stared at the corpses of the three troopers, floating lifelessly nearby, and decided that one day children would be taken to see their commemorative statues standing tall and proud in public parks on Freehold worlds scattered throughout the furthest reaches of the Milky Way.

Kieran led them along darkened corridors and via drop shafts towards the bridge, with nothing untoward occurring on the way. His soldier’s instinct assured him that whatever had been responsible for the sudden depressurization was finally gone.

Once they reached the bridge, Kieran managed to reactivate the main systems without too much trouble, but it was clear that much data had been wiped from the Hyperion’s stacks. It was even clearer that the approaching fleet was almost upon them.

Once Kieran had the emergency doors locked down and the bridge repressurized, Arbenz pulled off his helmet. ‘Kieran, see if that fleet is trying to hail us. Can you take us out of orbit if necessary?’

‘Propulsion systems are down for the moment, Senator, but the weapon systems remain fully functional.’

‘What if they start shooting?’ asked Gardner, his face white and eyes wide with alarm.

‘They’ll be waiting for us to start shooting first,’ Arbenz reassured him. ‘That way, history would record us as the aggressors. Kieran, hail the Agartha. I want to know if that fleet out there has identified itself yet.’

Kieran nodded absently and tapped at a screen. He spoke up several moments later. ‘Senator, the ships are owned by Alexander Bourdain. They’ve requested our immediate surrender, or they’ll begin firing on us.’

Gardner took a step forward. ‘Senator. We have to do something. We can’t just sit and wait!’

Arbenz hustled over to a command console, which had a map of the Arctis system displayed above it. The approach vectors of Bourdain’s fleet were overlaid in lines of glowing green. Kieran meanwhile stepped over to man the weapons station immediately next to it.

‘Kieran, do you think-?’

‘I make sure to keep up my simulation training, Senator,’ Kieran replied, anticipating Arbenz’s further question. ‘There are three ships approaching, but only one of them is armed. More than likely the others are nothing more than troop carriers. My best guess is they didn’t anticipate us moving quite so many of our orbital military resources to this system.’

‘You’re saying they didn’t think we’d be so well armed, then?’ asked Gardner from behind them. There was a nervous edge to his voice that Arbenz didn’t miss.

Kieran ignored his interruption and continued to address the Senator. ‘To all intents and purposes, the Hyperion appears to be still crippled. We could use that to our advantage.’

‘Where is the Agartha?’

‘Relative to Bourdain’s fleet, it’s been maintaining a position out of sight on the far side of Theona,’ Kieran informed him. ‘That means they’re using up a lot of fuel, but I’m fairly certain Bourdain’s fleet don’t know about her yet. Their approach vector is focused solely on the Hyperion.’

Arbenz nodded, pleased once more with Kieran’s natural instinct for warfare. ‘We’ll wait until they’re closer, then we can spring a little surprise on them.’

Corso was dreaming of his family back on Redstone, who were all glad to see him. He hugged his father, who was still wearing his prison uniform, his face streaked with blood from the prolonged torture sessions he had been forced to endure. Lucas recognized uncles, aunts, nieces and nephews he hadn’t seen in months.

One by one, they all waved goodbye to him as, smiling and happy and holding hands, they lined up along the edge of a ditch. The children all wore brightly coloured breather masks, from which rose plumes of steam. But, after a few seconds, half a dozen armoured troopers stepped suddenly out from under the shade of a canopy tree, and mowed down every last one of them with repeated bursts of fire from their weapons.

As Corso watched his kinsfolk tumble lifelessly into the trench, from nearby came the sound of an earth-digger engine roaring to life.

He woke feeling weak and dizzy, and the increasing gees from their rapid acceleration away from the Hyperion and from Theona didn’t help any. The Piri Reis was now roosting at maximum speed towards the inner system, putting as much distance between them and the Freehold as possible. He’d have actually preferred they headed for Newfall, but it was situated on the far side of Nova Arctis, and therefore out of range of the Piri’s fusion propulsion systems.