“Stupid,” Imbra muttered, but with the declaw firmly in place, he hadn’t even the anger to punch a bulkhead. He let his clenched fist rest at his thigh instead, nails digging into the fabric of his jumpsuit, while he studied the coolant systems and let the steps in his plan turn into mantra, joined only by the constant ringing in his head.
General Asarus debarked from her flagship, the N.S.S. Ragnara, during the next day shift. That evening, the whole of the shipyards team received debrief about the Novuni’s plan of attack. Some in Imbra’s quarters grumbled about the intended scope of the battlefield, but the crankiest mechanics were those working remote weapons’ design, which only made sense, since the bulk of Asarus’s plan relied on letting the Allegiance fleet get close—very close— and attempting to outmaneuver on familiar ground, with plenty of asteroid debris to use for cover and collision courses. There were too many variables for a human to work out, but with AIs in control of the ships, programmed in the months since Fort Five with the trajectories of tens of thousands of known, minute astral bodies, it almost seemed feasible. Still, the numbers weren’t promising; even official holovids made no secret of the fact that the bubble ships, streakers, battle cruisers, and lancers stood outnumbered three to one by the waves of Allegiance ships gathered just past the gas giant Dreya.
No wonder, then, that Grott soon joined the other spiritual objectors on the last shuttle bound for Hav, the planet’s largest moon and the Novuni territory best equipped for long-term underground shelter from any invading party.
No wonder, too, that Miha and the others on the Path of the Vengeful Sun took renewed vigor in their work—eagerly priming the fleet as best they could, knowing full well in their aching hearts that the misery of unwanted existence would be at an end soon.
And maybe, Imbra reasoned, why Paloma showed up outside his quarters the night before departure after all. Alone, and unarmed.
“Did you tell anyone?” said Imbra. “Even …?” “She wouldn’t let me come, if I did. And she’d be right. Frigg, even leaving her with the others out there, while I go off and do this fool thing—it’s a death sentence, isn’t it.” The question landed as a statement, so Imbra didn’t reply at once. He glanced around the otherwise empty module, all his bunkmates busy drinking in the mess, but there was nothing to offer the kid, not even a squeeze-bottle of water. “Most ship’s officers are from the south,” he said instead. “Nice place. Rich. Automated.”
“So, what, this is some sort of weird valley loyalty?”
“No. I’m not even sure if I can do loyalty.” Imbra frowned, hands palm up. “No rush of oxytocin, no real bonding, right? At least, I think … I don’t know. It’s all …” He cradled his head in his hands, massaging his throbbing temples, hoping to lessen the ringing.
Paloma looked at him with the revulsion that only youth, in all its decisiveness and propensity toward binary thinking, could dredge up. “I don’t care,” he said heavily.
Imbra raised his gaze and sniffed. Moisture settled strangely, high in the sinuses, in zero-g. “Right, of course. I only meant that—” He took a long breath. “You can drive. Most of these others, especially from the south—they can’t. Too used to giving it all up to the AIs. More interested in weapons control than steering, in any case.”
Paloma watched his mother’s killer steadily. “And that’ll save me?”
Imbra had to fight back a desperate laugh, the closest to fear he’d come in weeks.
“O Mother!” he said. “Kid, that might save us all.”
Bubble Ship AV04’s forward camera caught it first—the sudden tumbling of another bubble ship out of formation, a spray from its port panels indicating some sort of leak. Catastrophic coolant loss to any outside eye, with the ship spinning dead, belly up over and over in the middle of the fray. Meanwhile, AV04 was locked into an engagement course with the Allegiance, its waves of AI ships rising high to the left field of the viewscreen. Other ships started to feel the heat of their enemy’s long-range weapons soon after—sides scored until decompression became imminent; comm lines riddled with panicked ship’s officers last prayers for themselves and their sun. One little busted bubble ship hurtling so far ahead wasn’t much, then, in the scheme of things, with AIs dodging so much debris on both sides.
A streaker ship called the Jalfreda caught the best footage of what happened next—the little bubble ship’s tumbling suddenly becoming less predictable, more of an uneven wobble just below the plane of the leisurely advancing Allegiance fleet. To the invading AIs, the little ship surely registered no sign of active onboard processors—not with the coolant gone, and the engines superheating the rest—so it fell into background noise, along with all the other debris still being accounted for on their maps. Then all the Allegiance ships proximate to the little bubble ship went dark—like a ripple, extending outward from Bubble Ship XF32. An EM pulse, knocking out ion shields and disrupting processors in turn.
Those still in the shipyards watched in stunned silence at first—but then that magnetic ripple hit the mechanics, too, in
