No Direction Home Page 14

  But part of him could still remember Naomi the Bitch and had never recovered from what she had done to him, and still had affectionate – OK, and erotic – memories of a Livvy who had never actually existed – and whose original would be long dead now.

  They really did fuck you up, didn’t they?

  And this wasn’t really getting him anywhere, because what he needed to be doing was trying to sort out how he was going to deal with this situation, rather than brooding on events that, to put it bluntly, had happened to someone else. It was all in the past, and there was damn all he could do about it, so it was time to start thinking about the future. Specifically, how he was going to use the information Vinter – the real Vinter – had sent him.

  The documents and files that he had mentioned had explained a lot about how New Dawn had managed to infiltrate the Delta Pavonis project to such an extent. The fact that New Dawn had been involved in supplying not only the necessary finance, but also a good deal of the equipment, particularly the computers and digital electronics that were essential to the entire Habitat section, meant that it was relatively easy for them to gain access to supposedly secure systems, thus enabling them to place their own sleeper cadre aboard Terra Nova. Given that the project had been ten years in the making, it was perhaps inevitable that it would be compromised to some extent, but there was no doubt that senior UN officials had been bribed or coerced into assisting New Dawn – payments into Swiss bank accounts, accelerated promotions, lucrative job offers in New Dawn’s secretly owned companies, or places aboard the Terra Nova itself – on a scale that resulted in anything up to five per cent of the allocation in the cryosleep chambers being given to high-ranking New Dawn executives and their families, taking both the places and the IDs of those originally selected. Another five per cent had gone to Ferreira’s troops, most of whom had been recruited by New Dawn during those ten years, either just before or after signing up for the UN Peacekeeping Force, with the sole intention of providing the necessary military force to stage the coup at PlanetFall; until then they had all been model UN soldiers, even to the extent of being involved in firefights with New Dawn forces on several occasions. Ferreira had apparently been suborned while still serving in the Brazilian Army, long before he had joined the UN – he had been the deepest embedded sleeper of them all. Over the years, following transfers in and out, the Peacekeeping Unit he commanded had been ‘assigned’ to Terra Nova, by the which time virtually all of its personnel were New Dawn sleepers; the others were almost certainly those who not been revived ‘due to malfunctions in the cryosleep equipment’, as Ferreira had put it.

  Back on Earth, Vinter had done a pretty good job of uncovering all this, but, by then, it was too late – Terra Nova was already on its way, the damage had been done and many of those who would have faced arrest for corruption were aboard the starship anyway… But at least it gave him an idea of what he was up against.

  And that’s supposed to help me deal with a hundred trained soldiers and who knows how many politicos?

  Although the political cadre didn’t seem to have been revived so far, probably because Ferreira regarded the situation as purely military at the moment. The original plan – that of staging the takeover after PlanetFall – would have involved them staying in cryosleep until Ferreira’s troops had taken control, before they emerged as the overall leaders of the colony and so, presumably, Ferreira would be sticking to that same approach.

  Of course, there might be another reason; according to the dossier that the real Vinter had prepared, Ferreira didn’t seem to have a lot of time for politicians, or for any kind of authority, come to that – he seemed to thrive in situations where he was given independent command and so might delay reviving the politicos until it became absolutely necessary. Certainly, he was the sort of officer who would relish sorting out this situation by himself, who would see it as a challenge…

  Sounds a bit like me, in fact.

  So, in a nutshell, what he had to do was neutralise Ferreira and his Command Team, then their troops – and, by neutralise, what we are probably talking about is killing all hundred of them – somehow deal with whatever threats Stalker might pose and hope that any collateral damage to the ship that might be involved wouldn’t be fatal to their chances of ever reaching Delta Pavonis… How hard could that be?

  Piece of cake, really.

  Abruptly, the door opened and Ferreira came in, muttering his apologies, and gesturing for them to remain in their chairs – one thing you could say for him, he wasn’t a stickler for military protocol – before taking his seat at the head of the table.

  ‘Right,’ he said, briskly. ‘Major Watanabe?’

  Watanabe nodded. ‘Colonel, gentlemen and lady – we have constructed an electromagnetic accelerator, or a rail gun as Major Vinter would call it, and it is now ready for testing.’

  ‘Excellent news, Major. Have you a ready supply of projectiles?

  ‘Yes, sir. We are manufacturing small ball bearings to load into the device.’

  ‘Cannonballs, you mean,’ Vinter interrupted.

  There was a flash of irritation on Watanabe’s face – well, you shouldn’t have put in that comment about me calling it a rail gun, should you – before he said, ‘Indeed. But still effective and easy to produce as we do not have to precision engineer them – any shape will suffice if truth be told.’

  ‘Very good. Let me know when you’re ready to begin the bombardment.’ He glanced at Vinter as if expecting some comment, but Vinter was staring down at the table, his face expressionless. ‘However, I wish to discuss another option. Major Vinter?’ He wasn’t using ‘Inspector’ any more, Vinter noted; slowly but surely, Vinter was being drawn into the military hierarchy, whether he liked it or not.

  ‘Colonel?’

  ‘Your opinion is that Stalker’s meteor defence lasers would be able to destroy these projectiles?’

  ‘It’s what it’s designed for – it’s what ours does and theirs is going to be at least as good as ours.’

  ‘Would these lasers be able to destroy something bigger – say one of our shuttles?’

  I was hoping he wouldn’t think of that… ‘Probably not, no. They could make a mess of it, but they couldn’t destroy it completely.’

  ‘And if they were to use a nuclear missile against it?’

  Vinter shrugged. ‘They’d have to get lucky to hit it, given the kind of relative velocities we’re talking about. Obviously, if they had a really sophisticated, accurate defensive setup, their chances would be improved, but… Odds of fifty-fifty perhaps?’

  ‘So if we were to send an unmanned shuttle back, along with your… cannonballs, there would be a good chance of hitting Stalker?’

  Vinter shook his head. ‘No, there wouldn’t.’

  ‘Explain, please.’ Ferreira’s annoyance was only too apparent.

  ‘Look, we’re using a scattergun approach with the projectiles – we launch hundreds of them in the hope that one will hit – the chances are that they will all miss or be destroyed. Launching one shuttle means that you only have to be a fraction out in the aiming – even only a few metres – and the shuttle will miss. It won’t have enough fuel to make a second run, even if you fit a guidance or homing system. Within thirty seconds, it will be a hundred thousand kilometres astern and only just beginning to decelerate. It will run out of fuel long before it even reaches zero velocity relative to Stalker, let alone start chasing after it. You’d get just one pass and the odds of hitting at that kind of range are infinitesimal. You’d just be throwing away a shuttle.’

  ‘What if the shuttle had a pilot with superhuman reflexes?’ Ferreira asked, an edge in his voice.

  ‘Are you asking me to volunteer?’ Vinter asked, an amused smile on his face.

  ‘I could order you.’

  ‘And I’d tell you where to shove it – sir. In any case, the simple answer is No. You need computer level processing power even to analyse the situation at that speed and I’m not that fa
st, even in Augmented Mode. And even if I were, as I said, the shuttle would not carry enough fuel for any significant manoeuvres, not if you’re trying to alter course at that speed.’ He could see the sceptical expressions on their faces, then rubbed his face tiredly. ‘OK, I’ll slow down a bit,’ he said quietly, realising that the problem was that they were, literally, trying to keep up with him. Not surprising – even I didn’t realise that I knew all this and even if I did, the old me couldn’t have worked it all out this fast. ‘OK,’ he said again. ‘Look, Stalker is moving at three thousand kilometres a second faster than we are, so that’s going to be the shuttle’s approach speed relative to Stalker. That’s the speed I’m talking about. So you make a decision to alter course and you take just one second to implement it and you’re already three thousand kilometres further on before you’ve even started to change direction. This isn’t a case of sticking a hotshot pilot in a high-tech warplane and expecting him to pull off multi-gee aerobatics in aerial combat – this is a shuttle, for God’s sake, a bloody workhorse, that’s all, which at that kind of relative velocity is going to have all the manoeuvrability of a supertanker at full speed trying to avoid a seagull that’s just landed in the sea right in front of it.’

  ‘How about packing the shuttle with explosives and detonating it at the closest approach?’ asked Ferreira.

  Vinter shook his head. ‘You really don’t get celestial mechanics, do you, Colonel?’ Come on, be fair: they didn’t do space battles in whatever military academy they went to – there’s never actually been one, has there? We’re making this up as we go along… These guys would be fine in a conventional ground battle, but they’re having to deal with a war where their weapons just aren’t any use… ‘I don’t think we have any kind of weapons control system that could operate within the kind of parameters we’re talking about. At three thousand kilometres per second, you’re only going to be at any kind of close range – say within a couple of hundred kilometres – for about one fortieth of a second at the most, for heaven’s sake. And that’s assuming you only miss the target by a matter of metres. In any case, there is no blast effect from an explosion in space – all you can hope for is that some of the debris strikes the target and if you’re more than, say, two kilometres away, not enough will hit to cause even minor damage. If you want to get the explosion to take place within those two kilometres, you’ve got to get the aim exactly right over a distance of billions of kilometres and then you’ve got a window of about one four thousandth of a second, after several weeks of travel. And even if you somehow get all that right, all it needs is for Stalker to be moving ever so slightly faster or slower than we’ve estimated, or be not quite on the course we think it’s on and we’ll be nowhere near the target.’ He saw the glum looks around the table and gave a mental shrug. Your problem, not mine…

  Ferreira looked at Teymourian. ‘Is he right, Captain?’

  Teymourian nodded reluctantly. ‘I’d have to check the maths, but, yes, I’d say he was right.’

  Ferreira turned back to Vinter. ‘Thank you, Major,’ he said quietly, a note of resignation in his voice. ‘I can see that we have a good deal to learn about war in space, unfortunately.’

  Perhaps you ought to have included more astrogation experts than just Teymourian in your takeover group, then… But none of this was supposed to happen, was it? I doubt if any of them even have any experience in aerial combat, let alone trying to knock out a starship at interstellar distances – they were looking forward to a routine occupation style operation, not the sort of encounter that has no precedent in military history. Congratulations, gentlemen and lady – you get to write the first textbook for space warfare…

  Assuming there’s anyone around to read it.

  *****

  Vinter saw Kari Sondgren heading towards him in the corridor and reached into his pocket for the data card, deliberately not looking at her; as far as any onlookers were concerned, he was more concerned with the hand comp he was studying intently. When she was a metre or so away, he suddenly changed direction and collided with her, deftly slipping the card into her tunic pocket. He caught a momentary flash of realisation on her face, instantly removed as she said:

  ‘My apologies, sir.’ There was no mistaking the icy formality in her voice.

  ‘No need, Lieutenant – I should have been looking where I was going.’

  That was it; the they nodded curtly at each other and headed off in opposite directions, two colleagues who were clearly not on good terms but who were trying to be professional about it.

  And she had been thoroughly professional; even though it had taken her by surprise, Vinter doubted that anyone watching would have had the least suspicion about the brush contact.

  But the message had been passed.

  *****

  ‘Sir, can I have a word?’

  Vinter looked up from his desk and saw Kari standing in the doorway. ‘Of course, Lieutenant. Come in.’ He gestured at the chair in front of the desk and she sat down, her face expressionless. ‘What can I do for you?’

  She hesitated, as if unsure how to begin, then took a deep breath and said, ‘Sir, I was thinking that, perhaps, we ought to have a talk about the present situation.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I know that I’ve not exactly been all that co-operative since…’ Her voice tailed off and she shrugged helplessly.

  ‘I know what you mean. And yes, I agree that we should.’

  Now, she looked directly at him. ‘Only, I’d rather it was somewhere more – private – than here.’ She shrugged again. ‘Where we wouldn’t be disturbed.’

  Vinter nodded thoughtfully, deliberately looking directly at the TV cam in the corner, in the angle between the wall and the ceiling. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea, Lieutenant. Where do you suggest?’

  ‘My quarters?’

  He allowed himself a momentary expression of surprise, then nodded again. ‘You’d rather be on home ground, is that it?’

  ‘Something like that, yes, sir.’

  ‘Fair enough. Shall we say twenty hundred?’

  ‘Twenty hundred it is, sir.’

  *****

  Hiding in plain sight, Vinter thought as he emerged from the elevator onto the corridor leading to Kari Sondgren’s quarters. She’d realised that a covert rendezvous, with both of them having to make their way to it without passing any surveillance cams, not to mention possibly losing anyone following them, and then having to repeat the process on the way back would be nearly impossible, but a meeting arranged when they were almost certainly being monitored would attract far less suspicion.

  He resisted the temptation to look up at the surveillance cam in the ceiling about ten feet away as he pressed the buzzer on her door and clasped his hands behind his back as he waited for it to be opened, as if feeling apprehensive about the next few minutes. Which wasn’t so far from the truth, actually…

  The door slid open and she looked at him with a neutral expression. ‘Come on in, sir.’ The tone was polite, formal.

  Her quarters were smaller than his, and sparsely furnished; he had the impression that she did not spend much time there, because there was very little of her in the living room. On the other hand, she had only been revived a few weeks ago and virtually all of that time had been spent dealing with the threat posed by the pursuing starship and its agents, so transferring her belongings from storage had probably not been very high on her list of priorities.

  She motioned him to the sofa, then looked around her; she seemed just as much on edge as he was. ‘I’ve swept the place three times and I haven’t picked up any bugs, but–’ she shrugged. ‘Who knows for certain?’

  ‘We’re probably safe enough if you’ve checked. I think Ferreira has too much on his plate at the moment to start bugging our quarters – he’d have to circumvent our protocols to do that.’

  ‘True,’ she conceded. ‘Look, I don’t think this is going to be very easy for either of us, is it?’ She hesitated
for a moment, then asked, ‘Would sharing a bottle of wine be totally unprofessional?’

  Vinter stared at her, taken by surprise, then nodded. ‘It would be – but it’s still an excellent idea.’

  She smiled briefly. ‘I’ve got some white wine in the fridge – will that be OK?’

  Anji and I shared a bottle of white wine that first night together… He pushed the memory aside. ‘That’ll be fine.’

  He could feel the tension between them gradually draining away as she went through the ritual of opening the bottle and pouring out two glasses, handing his to him as she took the single armchair facing him.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his glass to her.

  ‘Skoal.’ She took a token sip, then said, in a matter of fact voice, ‘I looked at the vid.’

  ‘And?’

  She shook her head slowly in disbelief. ‘It’s one hell of a story. Have you really got your memories back?’

  ‘I’ve certainly got a set of memories, yes. One that includes Anji and Emma.’

  ‘Which ties in with the file Becky saw…’ She shook her head again. ‘Can they really do all that – plant false memories in your head? Can they do that to anyone?’

  ‘Rather than a clone, you mean?’ He saw her about to apologise and held up his hand. ‘No, it’s OK – it’s a legitimate question. I don’t know, if you want the honest answer. I would guess that the kind of detailed memory I was given originally could only be done to a clone as part of his or her programming, along with the augmentation, but there might be nothing to stop them feeding in short term memories.’

  ‘So they might have tampered with mine as well?’

  Vinter sipped his drink, realising that this was what had concerned her the most – and it was a natural enough reaction. ‘Not so much with your memories as with your attitudes, I suspect. What they have been doing is brainwashing everyone in the cryo chambers into supporting New Dawn – so if you tend to favour them over EarthCorp, that’s probably why.’