Uprising Page 6

  “Not her! Lhyn!” He glanced to the side and swore under his breath. “They’re already here. If you value our working relationship, you’d better make this right.” He vanished into the shuttle, leaving her alone to face the approaching quartet of Dr. Lhyn Rivers, Captain Ekatya Serrado, Bondlancer Salomen Opah, and Lancer Tal.

  Her head throbbed from the aftereffects of Kameha’s wrath, flung at her with all the strength of a fusion reactor. She was unbalanced and confused, the worst possible combination for facing Lancer Tal, and had no time to recover.

  “Prime Builder.” Lancer Tal’s voice was cool as she led the group up the ramp. “Let’s push Alsea into space, shall we?” She strolled past without another glance, her emotions tightly shielded behind the impenetrable front of a high empath. In her dress uniform, with its high-collared red jacket setting off her bright blonde hair, she was the picture of dignity and control. It made Anjuli feel even more unbalanced by comparison.

  Not until Bondlancer Opah stopped and held up a hand did Anjuli realize that Lancer Tal had neglected to offer this basic courtesy.

  She sensed nothing from the Bondlancer, whose high empathy was an open secret in Blacksun. Touching the taller woman’s palm revealed that her polite behavior covered a controlled anger.

  “Well met, Bondlancer,” Anjuli said.

  “Well met, Prime Builder.” Bondlancer Opah dropped her hand and followed her bondmate into the shuttle.

  Captain Serrado didn’t even look at her as she went past. Though her expression was neutral, her unfronted ire threatened to blast a hole in the side of the shuttle.

  Lhyn Rivers stopped at the top of the ramp and folded her arms. “You’ve thrown away a lot of goodwill, Prime Builder. For a really stupid reason.”

  She was even taller than the Bondlancer. Their height difference had not bothered Anjuli before, but now it was one more thing adding to her sense of imbalance.

  It had never occurred to her that Lancer Tal would pull others into a fight between the two of them. Was there anyone she hadn’t told?

  Anjuli straightened her spine and pulled herself together. Chief Kameha had made himself clear, and she could not lose her working relationship with him.

  “It was not my intent to damage anyone’s goodwill,” she said. “I apologize if anything I said offended you—”

  Dr. Rivers made an amused sound in her throat. “If? You know I’m a linguist, right?”

  Anjuli hesitated, unsure what her profession had to do with anything.

  “I’m the reason Chief Kameha and Ekatya and all the Voloth can speak High Alsean. I programmed the language chips for their implants. I know what a real apology sounds like, and that? Back home, we’d call that an ‘up your ass’ apology.” She fixed Anjuli with a knowing look. “You were very careful at the Games. Everyone understood what you meant, but you could still deny the interpretation. As a linguist, I had to admire it. I’m not admiring your non-apology.”

  It took only a piptick to reassess. Contrary to what Kameha thought, Dr. Rivers was not hurting. She was laying down a challenge—and enjoying it.

  “Chief Kameha believes I slipped a knife in you.” Anjuli gestured toward the other woman’s heart. “You’re not injured.”

  “He’s still protecting me. They all are.” Dr. Rivers uncrossed her arms and pushed her hands into her trouser pockets. “In a strange way, I appreciated what you did. Everyone’s still tip-toeing around me like I’m one unkind word away from shattering. I tell them I’m fine and they don’t hear me. They think being tortured for two days means I’ll never be whole again. But not you. It was . . . refreshing.”

  “Refreshing,” Anjuli repeated.

  Dr. Rivers cocked her head, as if she were carefully weighing her word choice. “Yes,” she decided. “Like a cold shower. It doesn’t feel good in the moment, but afterward, it feels great.”

  Anjuli couldn’t stop the chuckle that bubbled out. “You’re not what I expected, Dr. Rivers.”

  “I hear that a lot.”

  “I can imagine.” She held up a palm. “Let me try again, then. I had no argument with you, and I’m sorry you were dragged into this fight.”

  Dr. Rivers met her palm touch. “Thank you. That’s a much better apology. But don’t think I didn’t notice the passive voice.” As they dropped their hands, she asked, “Why did you drag me into it? I was just a proxy. Why not go to Andira directly?”

  Startled by the casual use of Lancer Tal’s first name, Anjuli said, “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “It does if you let it.”

  “Perhaps it does when you can call her Andira. That’s not a position I’ll ever be in.” She stepped aside and gestured toward the open shuttle door. “The spool will launch soon; we need to be ready.”

  “She didn’t do it to put you down,” Dr. Rivers said. “She did it for me.”

  It was sweet, how she couldn’t see that Lancer Tal accomplished both objectives with the same move.

  “Well, if someone else had to get it first, I’m glad it was you,” Anjuli said diplomatically. Only after she spoke did she realize it was true.

  “Thank you. It did mean a lot to me. Are we done, then? You’re not going to be a dokker’s ass about this?”

  “Not about this.”

  Dr. Rivers shook her head, amusement rising from her skin. “I guess that’s all I can ask for.”

  “It is,” Anjuli confirmed, but her smile was genuine.

  The amusement evaporated, displaced by a sudden intensity. “I’m going to pass on some advice a friend gave me.”

  She nodded, wary of this abrupt shift.

  “You are what you do. Not what is done to you.” Dr. Rivers spread her arms, taking in the length of the shuttle. “What are you doing, Prime Builder?”

  Speechless, Anjuli watched her walk through the door and noted that yes, she did have to duck her head.

  8

  Space elevator

  Her first flight into space was nothing like Anjuli expected. The Protectorate shuttle was as smooth as an Alsean transport, even when they passed through the atmosphere. As Dr. Rivers explained to a fascinated Irin, the shuttle’s shielding absorbed normal buffeting and vibrations.

  The seating arrangements had not been what she expected, either. Captain Serrado took the copilot’s seat, happily chatting with Chief Kameha as they prepped for liftoff and began the flight. Dr. Rivers walked up to Irin and introduced herself, then casually flipped a lever on the seat in front of him, twirled it around, and sat down to face him. Across the aisle, Lancer Tal did the same thing, creating two face-to-face seats for her and the Bondlancer. Anjuli’s seat was in the center of this impromptu grouping, and the conversation flowed more easily than she could have imagined.

  Then again, she should not have been surprised. Lancer Tal had long ago proven herself adept at playing a role, and she played it flawlessly now. Irin was thoroughly enjoying himself, leaving Anjuli torn between gratitude for the result and annoyance at the cause.

  But it was the Bondlancer’s first flight, too, which seemed to have inspired both Lancer Tal and Dr. Rivers—or Lhyn, as she insisted they call her—to narrate the journey. They were full of facts and figures, and one rather startling story of Lancer Tal spending a morning on her bonding break flying a fighter with Captain Serrado and shooting down drones in space. For fun.

  “Warriors,” Irin said with a wide grin, which led everyone else to nod and laugh.

  “Ekatya!” Lancer Tal called up to the front of the shuttle. “I need you back here. They’re ganging up on the minority.”

  “Busy right now,” Captain Serrado called back. “You’re on your own.”

  “Minority,” Lhyn snorted. “I’m the only scholar, and Salomen is the only producer. Are warriors so sensitive that they think parity is a disadvantage?”

  “I didn’t have to bring you along,” Lancer Tal said. “It’s not too late to push you into the emergency pod.”

  “Wait a tick, let me check something.” Lhyn looked around with exaggerated motions. “Ah, I was right. This is a Protectorate shuttle, and I’m a Protectorate citizen. Which means I brought you along, not the other way around.”

  “I thought you were an Alsean citizen,” Anjuli said.

  There was a charged silence before Lhyn’s lips quirked into a smile. “It’s called dual citizenship, and the advantage is that I get to be whichever one serves me best. Ninety-nine percent of the time, that’s Alsean. But right now, I’m holding my superior ancestry over Andira’s head.”

  “Superior!” Lancer Tal sputtered. “You’re sonsales and gender-locked!”

  “But we make better grain spirits. Yours tastes like boot polish.”

  “Don’t blame us for your lack of taste.”

  The Bondlancer joined the argument on Lhyn’s side, while Irin and Anjuli defended the glories of Alsean grain spirits. It wasn’t until the topic of conversation had moved on that Anjuli realized she had taken the Lancer’s side. She looked at Lhyn, wondering if that had been intentional, and caught a knowing glance that convinced her. Kameha, she concluded, was well-meaning but entirely blind when it came to how much protection Lhyn Rivers required.

  All conversation ceased when the shuttle reached an altitude that enabled them to see not only the curvature of Alsea beneath them, but also the translucent glow of its atmosphere.

  “It looks like an eggshell,” Bondlancer Opah said in an awed tone. “Such a fragile layer to be holding everything inside.”

  Irin silently reached for Anjuli’s hand and squeezed, his wonder flowing through their skin contact.

  “All that planning and worry and preparation,” Anjuli murmured. She could hardly believe this was happening.

  “Here it comes!” Kameha called from the pilot’s seat. “It’ll pass by on the starboard side.”

  Lancer Tal and Bondlancer Opah came across the aisle and crowded up to the window behind Lhyn. Everyone peered out, looking for their first glimpse of the spool booster.

  Anjuli’s heart hammered in her chest when she saw the speck of light moving up through the atmosphere. “Fahla, thank you for this,” she whispered.

  Irin squeezed her hand again. “Fahla helped. But you did the work. You and Chief Kameha and a thousand builders.”

  The light resolved itself into a space vehicle that would have been impossible to build before their treaty with the Protectorate. Energy shield technology had eliminated the need for heat-proof exterior materials and negated concern about micrometeoroid impacts. The compact fusion engine enabled them to launch an extraordinarily heavy, bulky vehicle without concern for aerodynamics or fuel load. She remembered the last satellite they had launched, before the invasion, and how they had counted every grain of weight. It was laughable compared to the behemoth that sped toward them.

  Larger and larger it grew, until she could make out the shield of Alsea emblazoned on the side, a fiery tree of life shining in the darkness of space. She had last seen this boxy vehicle sitting on its construction sled, firmly attached to the ground. It was surreal to watch it flying so smoothly toward them.

  Closer it came, until she could see the grapplers on its narrow end and the thrusters studding its thick sides. Then it flashed past and continued on its way.

  A low hum of engines vibrated through her feet as Kameha gave chase.

  “Spectacular.” Bondlancer Opah turned to Anjuli, her dark eyes sparkling and the dimple in her chin deepening as she smiled. “Prime Builder, you should be proud. I am, and I had nothing to do with it.”

  Anjuli could not catch her breath, overwhelmed by the import of this moment. “We should all be proud,” she managed. “We’re watching history.”

  “We’re making history,” Lancer Tal corrected. “Shall we get to work, then?”

  Anjuli dropped a kiss on Irin’s cheek, then stood and followed the Lancer down the aisle.

  The aft door opened into a seating area that included food stores, a matter printer, and a table with six chairs. Full windows lining two sides made the room seem larger than it was.

  Three vidcams and a holographic projector rested on the table. Anjuli palmed the control for the projector and activated it, then powered up the vidcams. Two of them rose, automatically set to focus on their faces. The third was tied directly into the projector. Their signals would pass through the shuttle’s quantum com to the receiving station on Alsea, where they would be edited into the live broadcast.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Always.” Lancer Tal took the chair at right angles to her.

  “Chief?” Anjuli called out.

  “Right here.” Kameha’s voice sounded as if he were in the room with them. Anjuli was quite impressed with Protectorate voice technology. “The signals are coming through at one hundred percent.”

  “Then we’re starting.” Anjuli nodded at the Lancer.

  “Alseans, well met from somewhere high above sea level,” Lancer Tal began.

  “A little over two hundred lengths,” Anjuli interjected. “And increasing every piptick.”

  “We’re chasing the spool booster, which just went past us looking perfect in every way.”

  “It was beautiful.” Anjuli couldn’t help herself.

  Lancer Tal raised an eyebrow, then offered the most genuine smile Anjuli had ever seen on her. “Yes, it was. Since we have a little time before it reaches the counterweight, perhaps you can show us how this first stage will work?”

  “Certainly.” Anjuli tapped the control and a hologram of Alsea appeared, hovering over the table between them. “This is our shuttle,” she said, pointing to a red light that popped into existence above the planet. As a green light appeared much farther out, she added, “The counterweight is here. That’s not its final location, but it’s where we need it for this stage of construction. When the spool booster gets there, four builders in a second shuttle will attach it to the counterweight. Then the spool will activate.”

  She switched to a hologram of the spool booster as it would look after its grapplers were hooked onto the massive counterweight. As they watched, a narrow door opened in the end facing Alsea and a wide ribbon emerged.

  “Getting the cable to Alsea’s surface isn’t a matter of simply dropping it,” she said as two smaller doors opened in the booster’s sides. “We could, but we’d be waiting a long time for it to arrive. At this height, it needs acceleration.”

  Small drones floated out, clamped to the base of the ribbon, and began propelling it back toward Alsea.

  “And at the other end of its journey, it will need deceleration. The closer it gets to Alsea and the more it unspools, the more it will weigh and the faster it will fall. The drones will control its descent so it arrives at our port platform at a manageable speed. In the meantime,” she said as the holographic spool booster fired its thrusters, “we need to keep the center of mass at a gravitationally neutral altitude. As the cable rolls off the spool and goes down—which increases the drag toward Alsea—the booster will move the counterweight up to balance it.”

  “Why is the cable so wide and flat?” Lancer Tal asked the first of their scripted questions.

  “We need enormous load-bearing capability combined with very light weight. That means the thinner the cable can be, the better. The flat surface will also make it easier for us to attach the rails, and the width gives us room for the shield nodes.”

  They moved on, showing the cable unspooling until it reached all the way to the new port platform anchored offshore south of Whitemoon. Then the hologram pulled back, swooping out to show Alsea and its completed elevator stretching into space. The cable was several times longer than the diameter of the planet. With a touch of the control, Anjuli set the hologram in motion. As Alsea rotated, the elevator swung through space with it.

  Lancer Tal continued to play the part of interested questioner, though she no doubt knew this system nearly as well as Anjuli. They spoke of installing the new, lightweight magtran rails on the cable, a process that would be largely automated both for speed and safety reasons. They discussed the operation of the shield nodes, then moved to construction of the solar collector on the counterweight. The power it generated would be conducted by the cable itself, running both the magtrans and the shields.

  Once the elevator was completed—hopefully in one cycle—they could run two magtrans, one on each side of the cable, each with a load capacity dwarfing that of any shuttle.

  The last part of the system would be the elevator station itself, constructed with materials hauled up on the magtrans. It would be a launching point for new Alsean ships to be built, a docking port for ships from the Protectorate, and a place of interstellar commerce.

  “Which is why we haven’t seen alien shuttles on Alsea, despite passing the time limit imposed by the Treaty of Alsea,” Lancer Tal said. “We’re open to trading, but Protectorate ships all have hullskin, even their shuttles.”

  “With the exception of this one,” Anjuli added.

  “And the second one we’ll be meeting at the counterweight. All the others are vulnerable to the nanoscrubbers. It’s ironic, isn’t it?” Lancer Tal said, going off script. “When we released the nanoscrubbers into our atmosphere all those cycles ago, they were nothing more than microscopic machines built to break down harmful radiation. How could we have dreamed they’d someday help save us from the Voloth and then become a barrier to interplanetary trade?”

  “From the smallest seed does the mighty molwyn grow,” Anjuli said. “The radiation produced by hullskin isn’t harmful, but the nanoscrubbers don’t know that and we have no way to reprogram them. We’re building a space elevator instead. When Protectorate merchants realized how rapidly we were progressing, they decided to wait for us rather than build brand new shuttles just to land on our planet.”

  She much preferred it that way. Two cycles ago, they hadn’t even known aliens existed. Their first introduction nearly wiped out their civilization. Regardless of how much the Protectorate alliance had given them in technological advantages, she could not imagine being comfortable with aliens regularly trafficking on and off Alsea. Better to keep them at arm’s length, safely removed on their elevator station.