Ephraim says, “Glad you’re all right, Genesis girl. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to get any relay codes—”
“We obtained them ourselves.” Abel sounds pleased with himself, but the glance he gives Noemi makes it clear he’s proud of her, too. “We’ve sent them out. Hopefully, Remedy ships will soon respond.”
The three people on the screen look at one another with mingled amazement and amusement. “That’s all well and good,” Zayan says, “but we dug up a few ships of our own.”
Noemi frowns. “What do you mean?”
“We called for the Vagabonds, and they came. They’ve brought medical personnel and drugs and—well, and themselves.” Harriet holds out her hand as she steps away, allowing the Persephone to see what’s on their ship’s screen. An entire flotilla of vessels hovers in space around them—no, an entire fleet. Are those dozens of ships, or more than a hundred?
Slowly, Noemi rises to her feet. “They came,” she murmurs. “You told them what Earth did to Genesis, and the Vagabonds rose up.”
Ephraim nods with satisfaction. “The chain reaction has just begun.”
30
THE VAGABOND FLEET HAS ASSEMBLED NEAR THE planetoid Pluto, a location of which Abel approves. It has several advantages: isolation, relative inattention from Earth, and at this point in Pluto’s orbit, not too great a distance from the Genesis Gate. It is an ideal place to hide, an even better place from which to strike.
Although he’d been able to extrapolate the size of the fleet from the image shown before, the impact of the assembled ships is far greater in person. More than a hundred Vagabond craft cruise in loose formations, all of them brilliantly, individually decorated by the people who work and live within. A quick scan reveals an ore hauler with Celtic knots in vivid green; another, smaller one with Sioux patterns in black, beige, red, and turquoise; and one tiny cruiser painted to look like a turtle. While many of the ships are small, not even as large as the Persephone, others reach impressive sizes; Abel even spots a few freighters, modified with extensive armaments.
Noemi notices the weapons, too. “That’s some pretty heavy firepower,” she says from her place beside him on the bridge. “Those modifications show some wear. They didn’t do this just to help Genesis.”
“Hardly.” Abel is aware his voice has taken on the tone humans call dry. “While most Vagabonds perform honest work, there are bands of self-described privateers. They get vague licenses from marginal authorities on colony worlds that purportedly allow them to search other ships and ‘reclaim’ any unauthorized cargo.”
Her eyes get big. “Wait—you mean they’re pirates?”
“Some would call them that. Others would call them heroic for their defiance of Earth’s supremacy.”
“What would you call them?” Noemi asks.
“That depends on the ship in question. These vessels appear to be from the Krall Consortium, the largest of the organized ‘free trading’ groups—known for rampant thievery, but also for avoiding loss of life.”
“Thieves but not murderers.” She looks toward the ceiling, maybe to God. “I guess right now we have to take what allies we can get.”
Abel considers her philosophical acceptance useful, as Remedy ships have also begun to arrive. They’re not as disparate as the motley Vagabond crews; these are mostly older Earth troopships or medical scows, one is even a retrofitted Damocles. Remedy prefers ships that were built to fight, though from the sight of them, the ships haven’t seen combat in many years. Probably the Remedy fighters haven’t seen large-scale combat ever. But they’re here because they’re hungry for battle—for the kind of conflict that will end their status as terrorists and turn them into a true army.
Virginia has remained at her console almost the entire time, searching for the info packet the Razers had promised her—if they were able to get it, which at this point Abel surmises they haven’t. Humans are slow to give up hope. He thinks she hasn’t even been listening until she interjects, “You’re asking who your allies are? You’ve got a bigger problem.”
Abel doesn’t immediately grasp her point, but Noemi must already have been considering the issue. “Nobody’s in charge.”
At that, Virginia finally looks up, a strange smile on her face. “You’d better figure that out, quick. Or else the ship with the biggest guns is going to figure it out for you.” A light on her console flickers, and she claps her hands together. “Oh, Ludwig, you flashiest of flashes, you!”
Noemi hurries to Virginia’s side. “The new form of Cobweb—you’ve got it?” They marvel at the screen as though they can devise a cure just from looking at the viral structure, which even Abel himself couldn’t do, but sometimes humans simply like to look at evidence of their accomplishments.
He, however, remains focused on the problem Virginia has highlighted. “We should call a meeting of all the captains, of both the Remedy ships and the Vagabond fleet.” He may not understand the nuances and illogicality of human political thought, but he was programmed with basic tactics. “With Ephraim, Harriet, and Zayan to back us up, we should be able to assert that much authority. Afterward—”
Noemi finishes the thought for him. “I guess we’ll see.”
The next hour brings a few happy reunions—Harriet and Zayan running back onto the Persephone bridge, declaring themselves home; Ephraim scooping Noemi, then Virginia, up in his arms until their feet don’t touch the ground—but the impending meeting, and potential battle, occupies the largest part of Abel’s thoughts. To judge by his friends’ jittery, uneven energy, they, too, are worried. More Remedy ships appear every few minutes, which on some levels is encouraging. This is truly a potential war fleet, one that would give even Earth pause.
If they can avoid internal power struggles, he thinks, the next few days could change the course of galactic history.
Both Abel and Noemi would’ve preferred to hold the meeting aboard the Persephone, but
