32

HARRIET’S MESSAGE IS PURELY TEXT:

There’s never been any official “Vagabond Code,” but if there were, it would say that we stick together. We can’t trust Earth, and we can’t trust any grounders to understand our way of life—so we have to be able to trust each other. Among Vagabonds, our word is our bond. Or at least, that’s how it used to be. Dagmar Krall doesn’t seem to think so anymore.

Ask around—anyone who was on the Katara that day will tell you that Abel, captain of the free ship Persephone, was initiated into the Krall Consortium.

But then Krall sold him out to Genesis.

She’ll tell you she did that for Genesis’s sake. For the alliance. For the survival of the Consortium itself. But what kind of “alliance” forces us to betray our own? Who’s really in charge here? Does Dagmar Krall intend to turn our Consortium into simple cannon fodder for Genesis?

If you’re better than that—if you’re still loyal to your fellow Vagabonds—come to the Haven Gate. We claim the right of challenge!

As political rhetoric goes, Abel thinks, it’s not bad. It both stokes anger and touches upon the Vagabonds’ core values, while gracefully omitting the information that Genesis wants Abel for a crime he did in fact commit. He wonders whether, in a slightly different lifetime, Harriet might’ve ended up in politics. Her message is marked only for Vagabond vessels; it will start with those in the Earth system and then be spread by them through the one unstoppable communications relay in the galaxy: gossip.

Zayan’s message includes video. He stands on the Persephone bridge, dressed in vibrant Vagabond clothes, head held high as though he did this every day.

“Dagmar Krall’s betrayal of one of our own is a betrayal of us all. When we swore oaths to the Consortium, we swore to protect every Vagabond within it. Not to protect Genesis—to protect each other. These promises don’t seem to mean much to Krall anymore. All Consortium ships are hereby summoned to the Haven Gate, inside the Haven system. We claim the right of challenge! If the Katara fails to appear, Krall has forfeited—and we will choose another leader, one who remembers the meaning of a promise!”

Zayan’s delivery isn’t as polished as Harriet’s text, but the message is even more pointed. This one will be routed through regular comm relays, which means even isolated Vagabonds, those beyond the reach of the Consortium, will see it. Abel thinks a few of these ships will arrive at the rendezvous, too, if only out of curiosity.

The “right of challenge” has only ever been ceremonial, according to Harriet and Zayan. It’s mentioned in the oaths new Consortium members take—Abel remembers that much—but it was almost a joke between Dagmar Krall and her followers, a promise that she wouldn’t turn into a tyrant.

This joke is about to become uncomfortably real, at least for her.

For lack of anything else to do, Abel reviews these messages repeatedly, from the docking bay, the only part of the Persephone his new, bulky body will fit into. He isn’t uncomfortable—the Smasher form is impervious to pain—but he’s getting rather bored.

When he was trapped in the equipment pod bay all those years, he entertained himself as best he could with his considerable internal resources. He replayed Casablanca over and over in his head, the perfect memories as good as watching it on a screen. He reviewed great works of literature stored in his databanks. He ran different battle simulations for many famed historical Earth conflicts, from Thermopylae to World War IV’s climactic Siege of St. Louis. Mathematical proofs, various plans for helping his creator escape cryosleep, composing formulae for thirty-dimensional spheres—it had occupied Abel’s mind reasonably well.

Which is to say, it wasn’t nearly enough to fill thirty years of isolation. It was enough to keep him from going mad, no more.

Abel has company to talk to this time—especially Noemi. But the humans on board can’t spend all their time chatting with him; they have a ship to run. Which means he’s stuck down here, profoundly bored.

The problem is that he installed enough memory in this Smasher to contain his consciousness—but only barely. There’s no surplus, nothing for him to use on such elaborate mental pursuits. He’s uncomfortably aware that even the slightest memory degradation in this unit will result in serious and probably permanent damage to his mind.

This is just one more of the many reasons he needs his body back.

Soon, he promises himself as he shuffles sideways to sit in another of the three positions available to him. At least it changes his vantage point. You’ll return to Haven and reclaim your body before long.

If he could find hope in that equipment pod bay, surely he can find it within a Smasher.

Several hours later, Noemi returns to the docking bay. She’s wearing her simple black utilitarian garb again, and by now her hair has grown back in. It’s still extremely short, but not too short to get rumpled. Even through his grainy vision, Abel can tell that she looks like herself again: determined, alert, strong. This is the Noemi he fell in love with.

The impending challenge threatens them; so does the greater war. Until they’ve overcome these dangers, he must find hope where he can.

“Hello there,” Noemi says. Her smile is wistful. “I miss your face.”

“I miss many parts of my body.”

She laughs. “I bet you do.”

Was that perhaps a double entendre? Abel hopes so. It would be good to feel that he was making some progress in learning how to flirt.

Though in this body, there’s a limit to how much progress he can make. It’s like trying to be sexy while wearing a bulldozer.

On the nearby control panel screen, Noemi brings up the same image Harriet and Zayan must see on the bridge—the space just within the Haven system, the Gate an enormous circle of silver in the background. Blurry as the black-and-white, two-dimensional is for Abel, he can make out the basic elements of the scene.

As they’d predicted, a large group of Vagabond ships—hundreds, if not thousands—has already gathered. Some of these are vessels filled with would-be migrants to Haven, stalled by the size of the gathering and the uncertainty of what’s going on. Others have responded to the messages that were sent out, expressing their dissatisfaction with Krall’s disloyalty. Probably some ships are here only to rubberneck; the showdown to come will fuel galactic gossip for years to come.

At least a few of them must have come to defend Krall. Abel imagines they’ll find out which ones soon enough.

Noemi says, “Long-range scans show the Katara approaching. It’s showtime.”

No sooner has she spoken than comms begin to chime. From her place beside Abel, Noemi opens a channel. “Am I speaking to Dagmar Krall, the supposed defender of the Vagabonds?”

The screen shifts to an image of Krall on her bridge. Her hair, normally worn free, is severely tied back into a knot. Given his current lack of visual clarity, Abel cannot determine her expression.

This conversation isn’t between the two ships alone; every Vagabond ship that wants to listen in can do so.

(Given human curiosity, he imagines most of them want to.)

“Yes,” comes the defiant reply. “This is Dagmar Krall, leader of the Krall Consortium, and I demand to know who dares—”

“Who dares call you out for what you actually did?” Noemi cuts in. “That would be me, Noemi Vidal. Vidal of Genesis.”

“Then you should appreciate that what I did was part of the pact between my Consortium and Genesis. That it was necessary to protect my people.”

“Oh, like you protected Abel?” Noemi folds her arms. “The guy you welcomed into your group and then betrayed? Wasn’t he one of ‘your people’?”

Krall meets her gaze without flinching. “Yes. I did that to Abel. I regret that it was necessary, but I had no other choice.”

Abel, who’s hulking just out of sight, is discouraged. They’d hoped to provoke Krall into reacting harshly and unwisely, which would further weaken her authority. Instead, Dagmar Krall sits as straight as a queen on her throne.

She continues, “My first duty is to the Vagabonds in my Consortium. Their first need is a place for them and their families to call home once their spacefaring is done. I doubt any one of them would hesitate to sacrifice their lives to give a home to all the others; certainly I wouldn’t. One life is a small price to pay for the prosperity of thousands.”

Fishing for loyalty. Praising her people. Krall’s clever, Abel thinks.

Noemi’s clever, too. “Easy for you to say when it was Abel’s life on the line, not yours. And it’s not smart, putting all your trust in Genesis, because Genesis doesn’t trust you. Any of you. Trust the one person here who grew up on Genesis and understands the culture. Outsiders aren’t welcome.”

“The Elder Council has made us promises,” Krall says. “They’ve offered us places to live.”

With a shrug, Noemi replies, “Maybe some members of the Consortium will find homes there, but most of you will always be ‘offworlders,’ and the current leadership will find any excuse it can to throw you out.”

“We won the Battle of Genesis. They owe us for that.”

Noemi shrugs. “I’m the one who brought you into the alliance in the first place. I’ve served Genesis my entire life. But they threw me offworld when they realized I’d—that I’d had too many artificial organs implanted for them to consider me human anymore.”

It’s not the whole truth, Abel thinks, but it is as close as Noemi can get without an overly long digression. The point she’s making is fundamentally true.

Noemi adds, “If Genesis isn’t willing to let one of their own wounded soldiers live there, how likely do you think they are to welcome you?”

“That’s a chance we have to take,” Krall says. Her voice has taken on an edge. “How much longer does Earth have? Not even a century, according to most estimates. Billions and billions of people have to find other homes, and most of the worlds of the Loop can’t house enough of them. Haven, down there—those of us who’ve had Cobweb might find a future there, but that’s a minority. A new Gate is being built in the Kismet system, but who knows if the planet on the other side will even be habitable? For the large majority of us, Genesis is our only hope. We have to trust them, and you’ll forgive me if I can’t endanger the future of my people for the sake of one mech.”

The signal crackles with interference. Abel would frown if he had a mouth. Interference is odd, this far away from a planet with no mass communications systems yet. Either there’s been a sudden surge in solar flares or—

—or someone is deliberately interfering.

In the background of the Persephone bridge, Harriet whispers, “Oh, crikey.”

Zayan must’ve split the screen views, because at the bottom, Abel now sees a small group of exosuited warrior mechs on approach from Haven, pointing directly at the Persephone like an arrow of steel.

“Transmission to all vessels within Haven system,” says an artificial, metallic voice. A number appears on-screen, suggesting the rough amount of credits it would take to purchase a small moon. “That’s for the ship that brings proof of the destruction of the Persephone.”

Noemi’s fingers cut the audio just in time for her to mutter, “Ooooookay. Turns out there’s a flaw in our plan. A major one.”

“I doubt Gillian Shearer has foreseen our greater strategy,” Abel says. “Mansfield’s probably only trying to kill me. Given my actions and statements within the Winter Castle, Professor Mansfield must have realized my soul survived. He knows I’ll attempt to regain my body, which means he won’t feel safe until he knows he’s obliterated me completely.”

Krall’s voice comes through comms, though she’s not speaking to the Persephone, only to her Consortium at large. “Everyone hold. That’s an order. We’re not bounty hunters, especially not for the likes of the people who tried to steal Haven from the galaxy.”

“Maybe you aren’t,” says another voice, coming from the captain of one of the many ships swarmed near. “For that amount of money? It’s worth changing careers.”

“Same here!” yells another.

“Oh no,” Noemi mutters. “No, no, no.”

But her protests are useless. Abel can see two ships peeling off from the Consortium, heading in his direction. Another ship follows—then another.

Noemi opens the channel to the bridge. “How many hostiles are we looking at?”

Zayan answers, “We’ve only got a couple dozen coming in for the attack—the rest are obeying Krall, which is a good thing, I guess? But it would only take one of them to blow us to smithereens. What are we going to do?”

“We evade and see if we can’t pick up some defenders.” Noemi half turns to the door, then looks back at Abel. “If you even think about tossing yourself out an air lock or some other heroic-sacrifice crap, I swear to God I’ll make you regret it.”

“No heroic-sacrifice crap,” he promises. “Got it.”

For an instant, Noemi almost smiles. But then she rushes through the air lock door, once again becoming a soldier preparing for battle.

Abel lowers himself as much as he can in this bulky body, the better to study the screen that shows the battle. The Persephone is unarmed. Twenty-six—no, twenty-seven Vagabond ships are incoming, with a variety of weapons and shielding. That would mean nothing if the Katara would defend them; the Katara is a massive ship with many weapons and a near-impenetrable hull. But for the moment, Dagmar Krall remains out of the fight, unwilling to fire on her own people.

The Persephone cannot possibly defend itself.

Abel can envision flight patterns that could help keep them alive, but no human pilot—even an experienced pilot and mech hybrid like Noemi—would be able to implement the course changes quickly enough.

He could, if only his current body weren’t so clumsy and large.

If only his body were something else altogether…

But it can be.

Abel reaches out through the Tether, seeking contact. Soon he senses something with the comm bandwidth and memory to hold his consciousness—the largest, most active input on the ship.

Which is the ship.

He imagines the propeller plane from Casablanca once more. It worked last time—and it works again. His consciousness leaves the Smasher and flows into its new home, like fresh blood pumping through unfamiliar veins. Every circuit, every part, becomes one with Abel, his new machine body.

I no longer own the Persephone, he thinks. I am the Persephone.

When he locates the sensors, he looks through them and can see again—this time in stunning detail and range, more than he ever could in his original body. He can even see in multiple directions at once. He brings more and more systems out of automatic mode until they’re under his direct control. The deep chill of outer space surrounds him, but without damage or pain; the sensation is delightful.

Internal sensors—check. He can see the bridge now, where Noemi, Zayan, and Harriet are all in various states of panic. “Each system is going down, one after the other!” Zayan shouts. “What the hell is going on?”

“Maybe they’re scrambling our signals?” Noemi takes the captain’s chair, desperate to regain control. She doesn’t yet know she’s in safe hands.

Abel finally finds the engines. He would’ve thought they would seem roughly analogous to his legs or feet, a means of locomotion. Instead, it’s their fire he feels, blossoming in the place he thinks of as his heart.