The Naked God - Flight

“Sure, Al.”

“That sound crazy to you?”

“I had a girl before. It was a good thing back then, you know.”

“Right. See, I had this idea. I remember there was this Limy guy, Wells, I think his name was. I never read any of his books, mind. But he wrote about things that are happening today in this crazy world, about Mars men invading and a time machine. Boy, if he’s come back, I bet he’s having a ball right now. So . . . I just wondered; he was thinking stuff like that, a time machine, back in the Twentieth Century, and the Confederation eggheads, they can build these starships today. Did they ever try to make a time machine?”

“No, Al. Zero-tau can carry ordinary people into the future, but there’s no way back. The big theory guys, they say it can’t be done. Not in practice. Sorry.”

Al nodded contemplatively. “That’s okay, Emmet. Thought I’d ask.”

“Was that all, Al?”

“Shit no.” Al smiled reluctantly, and turned from the window. “How’s it going out there?”

“We’re holding our own, especially down on the planet. Haven’t had to use an SD strike for three days now. Some of the lieutenants have even caught a couple of AWOL starship crew. They’re getting shipped back up here tonight. Patricia’s going to deal with. She’s talking about setting an example.”

“Good. Maybe now those bastards will learn there ain’t no get-out clause when you sign up with me.”

“The voidhawks have stopped dumping their stealth bombs and spyglobes on the fleet. Kiera’s hellhawks have done a good job clearing them out.”

“Huh.” Al opened the liquor cabinet, and poured himself a shot of bourbon. The stuff was imported from a planet called Nashville. He couldn’t believe they’d called a whole goddamn planet after that hick dirt-town. Their booze had a kick, though.

“You remember she moved her people into the rooms along the docking ledge?” Emmet said. “I know why she did it, now. They’ve knocked out all the machinery which makes the nutrient fluid for the hellhawks. And not just here in Monterey, all over the system, too. The Stryla visited all the asteroids we run, and layered their nutrient machinery. Her people are guarding the only one left working. If the hellhawks don’t do as they’re told, they don’t get fed. They don’t eat, they die. It’s that simple.”

“Neat,” Al said. “Let me guess, if we try to muscle in on the last machine, it gets zapped.”

“Looks like it. They’ve let slip that it’s booby trapped. I’d hate to risk it.”

“As long as the hellhawks do what I want, she can stay. Barricading herself in like that is dumb. It makes her even more dependent on me for status. She has to support me, she’s not important to anyone else.”

“I’ve put a couple of people on surveying what’s left of the machinery she smashed up. We might be able to put a working unit back together eventually, but it’ll take time.”

“Time is something which is giving me a fucking headache, Emmet. And I ain’t talking about Wells’s machine here. I need to get the fleet back into action, soonest.”

“But, Al—” he stopped as Al held up a hand.

“I know. We can’t launch no invasion right now. Not enough antimatter. There’s gotta be something else they can do. I’m being honest with you here, Emmet, the boys are so antsy, they’ll mutiny if we keep them kicking their heels in port much longer.”

“I suppose you could launch some fast strike raids. Let people know we’ve still got some punch.”

“Strike on what? Just blowing things up for the sake of it, ain’t my style. We have to give the fleet a purpose.”

“There’s the Mortonridge Liberation. The Confederation’s been beaming propaganda about that to every city on New California, telling us how we’re bound to lose eventually. If we hit some of their supply convoys we’d be helping the possessed on Ombey.”

“Yeah,” Al said. The notion didn’t really appeal, too few visible returns. “What I’m looking for is something that’ll cause a shitload of trouble for the Confederation each time. Knocking out a couple of ships ain’t going to do that.”

“Well . . . This is just an idea, Al. I don’t know if it’s the kind of thing you’re looking for. It depends on how many planets you want to rule over.”

“The Organization has to keep up its momentum to exist. Ruling planets is only a part of that. So talk to me, Emmet.”

Kiera could see eight hellhawks out on the ledge below her. They were all sitting on their pedestals, ingesting nutrient fluid. A rotor had been drawn up so the whole flock could feed on the ten metallic mushrooms which remained functional. Studying the huge creatures, so powerful yet utterly dependent, Kiera couldn’t avoid the religious analogy. They were like a devout congregation coming to receive mass from their priestess. Each of them abased themselves before her, and if the correct obeisance was performed, they received her blessing in return, and were allowed to live.

The Kerachel swept in above the ledge, appearing so swiftly out of the umbra it might have just swallowed in. A pointed lozenge-shape, a hundred metres long, it hardly hesitated as it found its designated pedestal and sank down. Knowing that even though it couldn’t see her expression, it could sense her thoughts, she smiled arrogantly down upon it. “Any problems?” she asked casually.

“Monterey’s command centre monitored its patrol flight,” Hudson Proctor replied. “No deviations. Eight suspect objects destroyed.”

“Well done,” she murmured. A hand waved languid permission to start.

Hudson Proctor picked up a handset, and began speaking into it. Two hundred metres below the departure lounge, her loyal little team opened a valve, and the precious fluid surged along a pipe out to the pedestal. A feeling of contentment strummed the air like background music as Kerachel began sucking in its food. Kiera could feel the hellhawk’s mood, it mellowed her own.

There were eighty-seven hellhawks based at Monterey now. A formidable flotilla by anyone’s standards. Securing them for herself had absorbed all her efforts over the last few days. Now it was time to start thinking ahead again. Her position here was actually a lot stronger than it had been at Valisk. If the habitat was a fiefdom, then New California was a kingdom in comparison. One which Capone appeared singularly inept at maintaining. The main reason she’d established herself so easily in the docking ledges was the apathy spreading through Monterey. Nobody thought to question her.

That simply wouldn’t do. In building his Organization, Capone had grasped an instinctive truth. People, possessed or otherwise, needed structure and order in their lives. It was one of the reasons they fell into line so easily, familiarity was a welcome comrade. Give them the kind of nirvana which existed (though she had strong suspicions about that) in the realm where planets shifted to, and the population would sink into a wretched, lotus- eating state. The Siamese twin of unending indulgent leisure. If she was honest to herself, she was terrified of the immortality she’d been given. Life would change beyond comprehension, and that was going to be very hard indeed. For an adaptation of that magnitude, she would no longer be herself.

And that, I will not permit.

She enjoyed what she was and what she’d got, the drives and needs. Like this, at least she remained recognizably human. That identity was worth preserving. Worth fighting for.

Capone wouldn’t do it. He was weak, controlled by that ingenious trollop Jezzibella, by a non- possessed.

In the Organization, a method of enforcing control over an entire planetary population had been perfected. If she was in charge, it could be used to implement her policies. The possessed would learn to live with their phobia of open skies. In return they would have the normal human existence they craved. There would be no dangerous metamorphosis into an alien state of being. She would remain whole. Herself.

A twitch of motion broke her contemplation. Someone was walking along the docking ledge, someone in a bulky orange and white spacesuit with a globular helmet. Compared to modern SSI suits, the thing was ridiculously old-fashioned. The only reason for wearing one was if you didn’t have neural nanonics.

“Are there any engineering crews on the ledge?” Kiera asked. She couldn’t see any hellhawks receiving maintenance right now.

“A couple,” Hudson Proctor answered. “The Foica is being loaded with combat wasps, and Varrad ’s main fusion generator needs work on its heat dump panels.”