The Service of Mars Read online

  “This war has to end.”

  “We also need, much as I hate to raise it now, to consider the line of succession,” Gregory said quietly. “With Jane dead, there is no heir to the Mountain and the Crown.”

  “We all know that isn’t true, Malcolm,” Kiera said, still staring out at the city and the planet she ruled. “But we’ve spent too long dancing around everyone’s fucking feelings to formalize what should have already been written in stone.”

  Damien blinked. The only real option he saw was to have the Mountain’s medical staff cook up a clone-child of Kiera’s. They could definitely do that—while not a true clone of her father, Kiera herself was closer to one than a biological child—and Protectorate law was clear on clones as children of their progenitors.

  “Unless you’ve found a boyfriend I don’t know about, I still don’t see a quick solution,” Damien pointed out.

  “I don’t think I’ve met anyone less than ten years older than me since my father died,” Kiera told him. “We could certainly produce a clone—or even write a will that calls for a clone to be created that inherits—but, as you say, not a quick solution.

  “Not as quick as the one we already have to hand.”

  “I’m sorry, Kiera, I don’t follow,” Damien admitted.

  The Mage-Queen of Mars turned around to study her Lord Regent, meeting Damien’s gaze calmly.

  “You’re not that stupid, Damien Montgomery,” she told him. “You’re willfully blind sometimes, but you’re not that stupid. A Rune Wright must sit the throne of Olympus Mons.”

  Damien returned her gaze levelly even as his stomach tried to twist itself into knots.

  “She’s right,” Gregory said quietly. “Everyone in the know assumed that if something happened to Jane and Kiera, you would be the next Mage-King. We need to formalize that and officially include you in the line of succession—after Kiera’s future children, of course.”

  “I do not…” Damien trailed off. He wasn’t even sure what to argue against. He didn’t deserve it? That was irrelevant. He didn’t want it? Neither did Kiera, really.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  “You don’t get to argue, Damien. The Protectorate needs this of you,” Kiera told him. “You might want to warn Grace about it, though.”

  Grace McLaughlin was the senior officer of the system militia of Damien’s homeworld of Sherwood and the granddaughter of Sherwood’s Governor. She was also his girlfriend, for all of the complications of their lives.

  “She’s supposed to visit in a couple of months,” Damien said, trying to wrap his brain around a bombshell everyone else had apparently assumed to be the case. “I already knew we were going to have to talk about children.” He shook his head. “There are too many people in the Mountain obsessed with preserving the Rune Wright genome to do anything else.”

  “And rightly so,” Gregory reminded him. “If we’ve lost Jane, we’re down to just two of you that we know of. Our magic, the security of Sol, the underlying power of the Protectorate…much depends on having at least one Rune Wright at the heart of Mars.”

  “You need to be my heir, Damien,” Kiera said quietly. “I think we should keep that quiet—I think hanging the title of Crown Prince on the Lord Regent will draw eyes and comments—but we need to make it formal and legally binding.

  “No matter what happens, Mars must endure. No matter what we lose, a Rune Wright must hold Protectorate over mankind.

  “My family bound ourselves to that duty, that there would always be a Mage in the Mountain to guard Sol and command humanity’s defense. My great-grandfather might not have known about the dangers beyond our borders, but he suspected something.

  “The Mage-Kings and Mage-Queens of Mars”—Kiera forced a smirk through her tears—“are humanity’s shield. And there must always be a Rune Wright on the throne at Olympus Mons.”

  “I understand,” Damien allowed, bowing his head. “And what do we do about the war?”

  “We talk to the High Command, as you said,” Gregory agreed. “We pick a commander. My inclination is Marangoz—he is senior—but we should be guided by the officers who know them all.

  “And then we finish this war. We know enough about what the Keepers and Nemesis feared, now, that being disunified terrifies me,” the Chancellor admitted. “Humanity must stand as one.”

  Damien nodded. The first Mage-King had created a secret order of basically librarians, the Keepers of Oaths and Secrets, who had concealed something from the rest of mankind. They’d been destroyed, both by Damien himself and by the conspiracy known as Nemesis—and Damien had destroyed Nemesis in turn.

  They didn’t know all of what the Keepers had known, but they did know one thing: there was a space-capable alien race somewhere near human space, one that had played a role in the Eugenicists’ rise to power on Mars and Project Olympus itself.

  But that was all they knew—that and a name: the Reejit.

  And until the Protectorate knew more, Damien had to agree with Gregory. Humanity couldn’t afford this war.

  24

  “All right, ladies, gentlemen, and Shvets, what am I looking at?” Kelly LaMonte asked as Rhapsody in Purple coasted through space.

  “This is the LV-Seven-One-DA System,” Shvets replied, smirking at her for her separation of them from the other bridge crew. “According to Protectorate records, there is nothing here. No formally recognized settlements, no claims, no mining outposts, nothing and nada.”

  Kelly nodded as she swept a critical eye over the displays. Most of the star systems she’d been in over the course of her career were F- and G-class stars, warm yellow and orange suns capable of supporting life.

  LV-71-DA was a red giant, a massive star that was flaring off excess flame even as she looked at it. None of its planets had anything resembling life. Even the basic atmosphere had been stripped off the three inner worlds by the flares, leaving nothing but giant airless rocks.

  The single super-Jovian gas giant had more promise, with several of its moons easily as large as the system’s rocky planets. They even had atmospheres, though none of them were remotely breathable.

  Icons were starting to populate around the gas giant as well. Not a lot of them, but there were definitely artificial energy signatures.

  “Since I’m seeing heat sources, I’m guessing the Protectorate files are wrong?” she suggested.

  “Republic records say that a joint Legatus-Mercedes industrial combine laid claim to the system shortly before the Secession and set up operations here,” Shvets told her. “On the other hand, that combine didn’t appear to have access to jump-ships after the Guild withdrew from Republic space, so who knows what happened after that? Certainly, there are no updates.”

  “Well, I suppose we can be helpful as well as intrusive,” Kelly replied. “Shvets, set a course for planet four. Let’s see if there’s anything interesting in those rings and moons.”

  She brought up a closer view of the icons Milhouse was adding to the display and ran through them. Nothing was really standing out to her, though it did look like more than the data they had suggested should be there.

  “Milhouse, what are you seeing?” she asked.

  “I make it a standard prefab one-kilometer ring station orbiting above the largest planet,” the tactical officer told her. “About a dozen small in-system ships, none over two hundred thousand tons. Looks like five secondary stations scattered through the moons, including one that appears to be built on a captured ice comet.”

  Kelly nodded slowly.

  “Water being the fountain of life if you’re stranded on your own,” she said aloud. “It splits into hydrogen for fusion plants and oxygen to breathe, and the water is needed for crops.”

  “A one-klick ring station has plenty of space to set up hydroponics if you’ve got water and decent fabrication gear,” Milhouse agreed. “I could see them managing to survive, even if they got cut off.”

  “An UnArcana World industrial com
bine had to have at least the chance of losing jump-ship access in the back of their mind, too,” Kelly agreed. “All right. This doesn’t look like it’s a Republic government continuity facility, which means as far as our mission goes, this is a bust.

  “On the other hand, I see a possible chance to do some good in the universe. Game faces, people. It’s Dancing Soprano time.”

  “Understood,” Milhouse replied. “Setting the beacons and inflating the bubbles.”

  The “bubbles” were a series of inflatable, metal-coated false fronts. To civilian and even most military sensors, they’d ping as if Rhapsody in Purple were larger than she was. She was too big to pretend to be a courier without some games and too small to pretend to be a freighter without the inflatable false segments.

  “Dancing Soprano” was a small fast freighter, designed to haul a hundred and fifty thousand tons of critical cargo as cheaply as possible. A ship of that type was about a third again Rhapsody’s size, but with all of the tools in Kelly’s arsenal, they could easily fake it.

  It took a few seconds for Rhapsody to inflate into her new role, but the identity beacon for the ship was in place instantly.

  “Energy signatures adjusted, course plotted,” Shvets announced. “Your orders, Captain LaMonte?”

  “Let’s go say hello,” she replied. “If these people have been stuck out here for the last two years, they could probably use a friendly face.”

  “What happens if they try and capture the ship?” Milhouse asked quietly. “If they’ve been stuck out here for two years…”

  “Then Captain Charmchi will convince them of the error of their ways,” Kelly said. “Hopefully without hurting them too badly. If the situation here is what we think it is, they’re doing well but they’ve had a rough go of it.”

  “Freighter Dancing Soprano, this is Administrator Nikitha Shamon of the LV-Seven-One-DA Extraction Facility, please respond. I repeat, this is Administrator Nikitha Shamon of the LV-Seven-One-DA Extraction Facility, please respond.

  “We are in need of humanitarian assistance and request you help under the laws of open space. Please respond.”

  The woman’s voice echoed on Rhapsody in Purple’s bridge, and Kelly felt the tension of her crew.

  “Milhouse?” she asked.

  “That was a live transmission, but she recorded it and it is repeating,” the tactical officer replied. “She sounds…stressed.”

  “There’s only so much we can do,” Kelly admitted. “But I think we need to find out what’s going on here. Xi, are you ready to get us out if something goes sideways?”

  “Of course,” her wife replied over the intercom from the simulacrum chamber. “Surely, there’s something we can do?”

  “There’s a lot we can do,” Kelly replied. “Or that Mike can do, anyway. But we can’t bring anyone aboard Rhapsody. That limits us.”

  “Every one of my pilots is at least partially trained as a medic,” Kelly’s husband pointed out. He was talking to his wrist-comp in the shuttle bay. “We’re prepping the shuttles for emergency aid, but it’ll be easier if I know what help they need.”

  “Is that a subtle hint to call them back, my love?” Kelly asked Kelzin.

  “No, it wasn’t subtle at all,” he told her. “We need to know what they need. Worst case, we, what, go back to Legatus and send a Guard transport to handle them?”

  “Basically,” Kelly agreed. “All right, everybody; sit still and pretend we’re actually civilians.”

  That was part of why Rhapsody’s bridge was split in two the way it was. The recorder focusing on Kelly showed a bridge that wouldn’t look out of place on the ship they were pretending to be—even if the portion of the bridge behind that recorder looked like it belonged on a warship.

  “LV-Seven-One-DA Extraction Facility, this is Dancing Soprano, Captain Kelly LaMonte speaking,” Kelly told the camera. “We were paid to divert here and carry out a quick mineral survey, but it looks like the system has already been claimed.

  “We are ready to provide any assistance we can, but we are carrying a hazardous cargo and can’t bring people aboard. Please advise of your situation and we will see how we can help you.”

  Rhapsody was still most of a light-minute from the gas giant, but the distance was evaporating quickly as Shvets burned toward the Extraction Facility at three gravities.

  When the repeating recording finally stopped, it was replaced with a video message from Administrator Shamon. She was a dark-skinned woman in a pale lilac shipsuit, her hair knotted into a rough ponytail.

  “Captain LaMonte, you have no idea how long it’s been since we’ve seen anyone in this hole of a system,” Shamon told her. “Technically, my employers own the mineral rights to this system, but since I haven’t heard from them in twenty-two months, I don’t know what’s going on.”

  Kelly swallowed. It was entirely possible that these people didn’t even know about the Secession, let alone the war.

  “We have successfully established hydroponics farming and water extraction to keep ourselves going, but our stocks of medical supplies have run out and we have some kind of influenza mutation running rampant through the crew,” Shamon admitted. “Fatalities have been low so far, but we’re running down to the wire and too many of our people are flat on their backs.

  “If you can spare us any medical supplies, we’d be grateful, but we’re in desperate need of antivirals and immune boosters. News from the outside world would be appreciated. Our supply shipments just…stopped.

  “In theory, I can commit the Locustus Combine to cover any and all costs incurred assisting us, but since I haven’t heard from them, I don’t know for sure. So, all I can do is beg of you: please help us.”

  The image froze and Kelly shook her head grimly.

  “You get that, Mike?” she asked her husband.

  “Yeah,” he confirmed. “As it happens, we have about four times the stockpile of what they need that a ship like Soprano would have. Do we…” He paused. “We can probably give enough supplies to handle the outbreak, but the ship we’re pretending to be wouldn’t have them.”

  “Give them the supplies,” Kelly ordered. “I don’t think Shamon is going to be asking hard questions. Not least because her only hope of seeing anything except that prefab station rests with a Protectorate relief mission!”

  Rhapsody carried four shuttles. One of them was a heavy-lift shuttle capable of carrying multiple ten-thousand-ton cargo containers, which wasn’t useful for today’s task.

  The other three could pass for regular personnel shuttles until someone got aboard them. From the inside, the pretense of them not being armed assault shuttles was thin at best. Just the missing volume would be a hint to anyone who knew much about shuttles.

  But they were the shuttles Mike Kelzin had, and Kelly watched him fly the lead spacecraft over to the space station. Each of the three shuttles was packed with medical supplies of a hundred different descriptions, from antivirals and immune-system boosters to IV bags, gowns and masks.

  Influenza mutations were a recurring problem despite humanity’s best efforts. Rhapsody’s crew knew what Shamon’s people needed.

  “Anything suspicious?” she asked Milhouse.

  “The station is unarmed. They have a meteor-defense system that might manage to scratch the paint on the shuttles,” the tactical officer told her. “And I have to emphasize might. The only risk I see is that they attempt to storm the shuttles.”

  “Which we’ve accounted for,” Kelly replied. There were three “crew” aboard each shuttle to help with offloading. All nine of those people were members of Charmchi’s company of the Bionic Combat Regiment, and if the locals thought they could overwhelm nine of the best commandos available to the Protectorate Special Operations Command, well.

  On the other hand, her husband was on the lead shuttle, so Kelly was allowed some concern.

  “This is Shuttle One; we have docked,” Kelzin’s voice reported over the radio. “Welcoming committe
e appears as expected. I’m going to go meet and greet with the Administrator.”

  He paused.

  “What do I tell her?” he asked.

  “The truth, about the war at least,” Kelly ordered. “The Secession, the Siege, the Promethean Interface. All of that is public knowledge and she deserves to know.”

  “We can promise to send help regardless of who we’re pretending to be, right?” Kelzin asked.

  “We can promise to tell people they’re in trouble, if nothing else,” she agreed. “The Protectorate would never have left them out here this long, but they were in Republic space and we didn’t even know about them.”

  “All right. Heading in. I’ll update you shortly.”

  Kelly watched the icons of Shuttles Two and Three make contact with the space station as well and forced herself to breathe normally.

  “I don’t think we really need to feel guilty, boss,” Shvets pointed out, their eyes darker than usual against their makeup. “Even if we had known these folks were here, this was Republic territory. We couldn’t really do humanitarian work in Republic space.”

  “I’d remind you, Shvets, that the first shots of this war were fired when we sent a humanitarian relief convoy to a Republic world,” Kelly said quietly. “Neither the Mage-Queen nor her father ever limited their true protectorate to the people who swore fealty.

  “Someone would have come for these people if we’d known.”

  “We didn’t. And now someone has come for them,” her navigator replied. “Us. And we’re going to make sure they’re okay, right?”

  A few commands brought up the video from the shuttle’s hatch camera. The BCR commandos were carefully moving pallets of medical supplies, taking advantage of the zero gravity of the docking station at the center of the ring.

  Nikitha Shamon was hanging on to a handhold, watching the pallets drift past as she spoke to Mike Kelzin. Kelly couldn’t hear the dark-skinned administrator’s words, but the woman’s body language spoke volumes.