Abel knows down to the second the moment he’ll be within sensor range of Neptune’s moon Proteus. Yet he waits on the bridge for almost an hour beforehand, unable to focus on anything else, staring at the viewscreen and willing the alert to sound.
Without Zayan and Harriet, Abel doesn’t bother with his captain’s chair. Instead he sits at ops, checking and double-checking every system on the ship, waiting, waiting—
The proximity alert sounds. Instantly he brings up the long-range images of the moon Proteus. His viewscreen fills with unexpected details; he frowns as he identifies a docking framework and a passenger ship—an enormous passenger ship, one that could carry perhaps ten thousand individuals on shorter journeys, or thoroughly provision and entertain a small number in great style. Given the appearance of the ship, Abel suspects the latter. This vessel—surely the Osiris Mansfield spoke of—is as intricate and golden as any piece of jewelry found in an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb, with designs in styles no doubt meant to evoke that comparison.
Abel frowns at its gaudiness. The extravagance is of course wasteful, so it must serve some purpose.
Its use can’t be tactical, he thinks. Therefore it is emotional. The passengers of this ship are no doubt rich, and they may wish for the ship to reflect their wealth and status. So the elaborate decoration is… symbolic.
He wonders whether Burton Mansfield helped choose the ship’s name. As Abel knows from experience, Mansfield likes symbols and allusions. In the ancient Egyptian myth, the great god Osiris is murdered by his brother Set, who dismembers the body and scatters the pieces far and wide. Osiris’s wife, Isis, and the other goddesses bring the pieces back together, though there’s one part they never find: the penis. So Isis creates a phallus out of gold for Osiris, then copulates with her reequipped husband, causing him to be resurrected as king of the world of the dead.
Mansfield would of course be drawn to the idea of rebirth. Surely, Abel thinks, it can’t be about the replacement phallus, though Freudian theory might find a link between that and the enormous size of the Osiris.
Movement at the edges of the ship’s framework proves to be a large squadron of fighter mechs, swooping through the area and skimming the surface, protecting every millimeter of the hull. It may be impossible to sneak aboard. Abel considers turning himself over to Mansfield—or appearing to, feigning his defeat just long enough to get on board—but that would require him to fight his way out—
The border of the viewscreen flashes yellow: new ships in proximity. Abel’s sharp vision picks up motion around Proteus and Triton as well. Immediately he focuses multiple lenses on each motion, bringing up several dozen vessels of various sizes, all of which seem to be moving in on the Osiris’s location, faster than normal passenger ships or freighters.
“Remedy,” Abel says aloud.
Not the Remedy faction he sought either—not the moderates and medical professionals who founded the resistance movement. Those people wouldn’t be attacking a passenger ship. These can only be the radicals. The dangerous ones. The terrorists.
The Persephone is still several minutes away, and his ship can’t turn back a force of that size on its own. Abel, used to easily overpowering and outthinking humans, is unprepared for the knowledge that he’s outmatched. Even if the Persephone had weapons, he’d be hard-pressed to take out more than a handful of the attackers.
But Mansfield and Noemi have to be aboard that ship.
Directive One pulses within Abel, demanding that he do something to protect his creator. Anything. He takes hold of his control panel and braces himself as though for impact: The urge to protect Mansfield is that strong. Something far more powerful urges him to save Noemi, to get her out of there even if it costs his own life.
He hits the controls and sends the mag engines into overdrive.
The Persephone flashes into the battle in mere seconds. Abel kills overdrive right away; the engines buck in protest but his ship remains ready. Unfortunately the Persephone has no weapons, only mining lasers that can do damage when needed. So Abel can offer little more than escape.
Reach the docking bay. Use the damage Remedy has done to get on board. Then find Noemi and free her from custody. Directive One repeats within his mind, but Abel ignores it, or tries to. We’ll notify Remedy of our neutrality as soon as we leave the Osiris. Perhaps there will even be a chance to discuss the mission to help Genesis, to get relay codes from someone on one of these ships—
Laser cannon fire slices so close to the Persephone that every alert goes off at once; every console lights up almost solid red. Another meter closer and his ship would now be wounded almost past repair. Abel decides informing Remedy of his neutrality should be an earlier step in the process.
He slaps comms on for wide-frequency transmission. “To any Remedy vessels within communications range, this is the Persephone, a noncombatant vessel. Please respond.”
No reply. No other ships fire but Abel can’t determine whether that’s due to his message or because they’re focusing their attack on the Osiris with even greater frenzy.
The Remedy ships blast the spacedock surrounding the ship over and over, until the skeletal framework shatters into metal beams that rotate out through space. As Abel watches, unable to intervene, Remedy ships circle the Osiris, darting toward and away like stinging insects, until a few manage to penetrate the landing bays.
Once on board, the Remedy members will no doubt assume control of the vessel. Then Noemi will be at the mercy not only of Burton Mansfield but also of the most dangerous
