“Jenny.”
Richard. Shhh.
“No. Now.”
Not even time to make it polite. “Captain.” My voice cuts hers like a cleaver through bone. Richard's words tumble out of my mouth. I wonder why he didn't use the ship speaker, realize it's so Wainwright will hear the news in my voice and not his. “Captain, Richard says the Huang Di is closing on us at speed. She appears to have triggered her stardrive, then dumped velocity to sublight, but she's still moving at a very good clip.”
“Is she armed?”
“Not for ship-to-ship combat, ma'am.” Gabe stares at me. I see him from the corner of my eye. “Richard says she's carrying a ten-hundred-ton nickel-iron asteroid.”
“Oh,” she says, and sags against the bulkhead, holding herself up with one flat palm. Richard won't need to explain what it means. I won't, anyway. He's already filling my head with velocities and trajectories and a phrase that clogs my mind until I cannot breathe, cannot think.
Impact event.
“What are our options, Master Warrant?” The polished flicker of her eyes tells me the woman's gone and the officer has returned, but the lines beside her nose and mouth are strained. “Where will they attack?”
Richard, crisp and brittle, traces of Alan creeping into his voice. “The logical choice is the capital, Jenny.”
“Toronto,” I translate. And close my eyes. Elspeth. Genie. Over my shoulder, Patty moans low in her throat. “We could try to catch the rock with the Montreal, ma'am. But she's not very maneuverable sublight. She's a sailboat.”
“I know. What else?”
“A shuttle,” Patty says.
Leah. She's on the Leonard Cohen. Unless it's reached the Calgary already. Could it have? I don't know. Gabe's looking at me, lips tight. Tasting bile, I close my eyes. “A shuttle might work.”
Richard.
“I already told her, Jen.”
Thank you. I couldn't have given the order. Could I? Merci à Dieu. I will never have to know. “Leah and Trevor are going after the Huang Di,” I tell Wainwright. “They'll try to intercept the rock.”
I'm not quite fast enough to stop Gabe going to his knees.
The captain grabs his other shoulder and yanks him up while I'm still torn between comfort and On your feet. “Come on, soldier,” she orders. “You need to fix my starship, Castaign. And we need to get a message to Riel. Casey.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
We run. I unholster my sidearm with its ship-safe plastic bullets and clutch it in my meat hand; Wainwright glances at it but doesn't comment. Even light body armor will make a joke of those rounds, but she's wearing one, too. I age ten years in the seven minutes it takes us to reach the bridge. “How many people on this bucket can we trust?”
She shakes her head and palms a hatchway lock that wasn't there before. I notice its freshly soldered shine. Gabe and I exchange a hard, covert look; I wince at the way his face pinches around the eyes.
“Four,” she says.
“Five, Jenny.”
I nod to the voice in my head. “Richard's in.” Wainwright skates a cold glance across me. I tilt my head, a nod to the alpha set of her shoulders, and step through quickly when she undogs the hatch and pushes it wide.
“I've had the crew confined to quarters for three days, Casey,” Wainwright says. “Except security and a few I more or less trust.”
I raise my hand to shield my eyes. The fluorescents are up to full, and the whole room shimmers in their strobing. Ow. Richard.
“Sorry. Tell Wainwright that Riel has the evacuation under way.”
Genie? Elspeth? Razorface, Indigo, Melissa, the VR tech, the cute boy at the front desk of the Marriott, Boris the fucking cat.
“We're doing everything we can,” he answers. Five words, I know from very personal experience, that you never want to hear a doctor or a paramedic say.
Without being told, Gabe and Patty fan out across the bridge, heading for panels, bringing locked-down systems on-line. The lights dim abruptly as Richard takes pity on me, and Wainwright shoots me a look. “The AI was supposed to be firewalled out of the ship's systems.”
“He was. He's learned things.” Richard— “Captain.” My outside voice. Can you access the drive? How locked down is the crew? I have some wild idea we can beat Leah to the Rock, which just grew a capital letter in my head. “The Chinese just jumped in-system. Can we get Charlie Forster working on hacking their nanotech back? Considering all the fun they've had with ours?”
“He already is,” she says. “He's on Clarke. Master Warrant, I can't ask you to try to fly this ship when I don't know what's lurking in her brain.”
“I'm still working on the drive,” Richard interjects. “There are physical interlocks I am going to have to bridge. Our little friends are building them now.”
I shake my head. “I'll take her.” I can't in good conscience put the Montreal and her three hundred crew in between the Hammer of God and my family on the ground. Not when Leah can get there first. But I've got some strangeness in me that says go.
Be near.
Hold her hand when she dies.
Leah's about the same age my little sister was when my older sister killed her. Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce. I was in Montreal. Nell gave me that eagle feather when I graduated basic training. Jenny, you're a warrior now.
Le Seigneur est avec vous. I came home for the funeral. Earth rained on the brushed-copper coffin like the beating of my heart in my ears. Vous êtes bénie entre toutes les femmes et Jésus le fruit de vos entrailles est béni.
Are you going to stop me, Richard?
Leah's not my daughter.
She's my whole goddamned world.
The Montreal's main drive is violently attracted to mass. The Chinese have somehow found a way to jump short of a gravity well. They can stop. Sainte Marie, mère de Dieu—
I cross the bridge to my chair. Richard doesn't whisper anymore; he can't spare the time. His voice rings over the loudspeakers as Wainwright dogs the hatchway, palm seals the lock, and wedges it tight. It's us on the bridge, us four and two security guards in full riot gear. “The Huang Di has released its missile, Captain. Leah and Lieutenant Koske are in time. They will intercept.” —priez pour nous pauvres pécheurs, maintenent et à l'heure de notre mort.
“No.” Soft leather cups my thighs. I try to reach back and pull the collar forward, but the arrangement defeats me.
“Gabe. I have a plan.”
He looks up from a terminal. “Jenny, what are you doing?” Wainwright looks up, too, and Patty. I gesture them back, and there's no time to argue. They have their jobs. Leah has hers.
I have mine.
“Something really stupid, and I need your help. Can you pull that collar forward? And this serpentine, here?” I undo my belt and unbutton the top button on my pants, hurried enough that the steel hand tears cloth, sliding the waistband down enough to expose the bulge of my lower processor.
“Casey,” Wainwright warns. “The system's not clean.”
“I'll manage.” You do. What you must. Amen.
Gabe abandons his terminal, Patty moving in to cover him, her eyes wild behind the dark spill of her hair over her shoulder. Leah's her best friend. Patty's got family on the ground. Gabe, frowning dubiously. “Jen…”