Accord of Honor (15 page)

T
hings moved rather rapidly
from that point. Shaunesey sent up the pardon within the hour, which was probably record time for a United Nations office to do much of anything. I sent it back down to my corporate lawyers who went over the text with a fine tooth comb. It came back as OK. There were no hidden clauses or problems with the text. Shaunesey was being straight up. For once. As soon as I was taken into custody, everyone else involved would be pardoned for all their actions. My lawyers added a clause about dispensation for Thomas and James to continue flying their ships while the U.N. worked out the Accord issues, but it turned out that wasn’t necessary. An emergency council session voted nearly unanimously to eliminate the Lunar Accord, and to create an armed United Nations space navy.

Ironically, both China and the United States voted against the measure. The two countries didn’t agree on a lot, but I think neither was happy with the idea of a one-planet navy that wasn’t in their pocket. It looked like it was going to become a reality, though.

The pardon settled, the next step was to turn myself in. I decided the best bet was simply to fire myself out of the ship in an escape pod. Since the pardon didn’t technically come into play until I had surrendered myself ‘to proper authorities’, it was possible that Shaunesey might order a boarding party to try to take the ship if I allowed a shuttle to dock with Defender to take me off. I wasn’t putting anything past the man.

The life pod seemed a safer bet. I had Glenn take Defender into a low orbit, hugged Thomas, and hopped into the pod. Worst case, they’d shoot me down with a surface to air missile as I descended. I didn’t think that was what Shaunesey had in mind. He wanted me in custody. Still, I had no interest in being ‘shot while trying to escape’, so I did take a few precautions.

The decent and splashdown were pretty uneventful. About ten minutes after my pod splashed into the ocean, I felt something lifting it, and me, out of the water. I was carried through the air this way for a short distance and then dropped gently onto a hard surface. I popped the hatch and climbed out. The sunlight was dazzling. I was on the deck of an aircraft carrier, and as my eyes cleared I could see there was quite the welcoming reception. I was greeted by what must have been two hundred soldiers and sailors on the deck, all at attention. From one side of the formation, a man I knew well stepped forward, his crisp dress whites practically glowing in the sunshine.

“Admiral Perrault,” I said formally. “Permission to board your vessel?”

“Granted, Admiral Stein,” he said with a warm smile. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks for agreeing to come get me,” I said. “I didn’t want to take chances with who got to me first.”

“You always were a smart boy,” he said, grinning.

I waved at the crew. “What’s all this?”

“A few of the men,” he said with a raised eyebrow, glancing over his shoulder at the mass of people behind him, “wanted to see you land and wish you well.”

A cheer erupted from the crowd, and I forced a smile for their sake. I never wanted to become a hero, the first time. The press made me into one anyway. At least if it happened again now, I could be proud of it this time. Maybe I’d become part of the legends oldtimers told the newcomers when Earth finally got around to building their space navy.

I stopped, realizing that I wasn’t thinking about Earth’s navy as ‘mine’ anymore. It was ‘theirs’. Now, when had that happened? I hadn’t noticed it until that moment, but somewhere along the line I’d stopped thinking of myself as a citizen of Earth. When I thought of home, it was of Olympus City and Mars, not Michigan on Earth. Odd. I filed the thought away to ponder later.

“I’m sorry you can’t stick around longer,” Barry said. “I have orders to bring you directly to New York via the fastest transit, so you’ll be leaving by supersonic fighter just as soon as we clear the deck.”

“Tell the man no rolls, please, Barry,” I said. “I don’t think he wants me decorating the inside of his cockpit.”

Perrault laughed and clapped me on my back. “Come get some coffee while they get the flight ready.”

T
hirty minutes later
, I was on a flight to New York aboard a military supersonic plane. It took us under an hour to arrive. From there I was handed over to United Nations security police. They locked me into a cell several levels below United Nations headquarters and took my statement and plea. As per the deal, I pleaded guilty as charged. That wasn’t as hard as it might have been. There may have been extenuating circumstances, but I certainly was guilty. Just because I felt it was a stupid law didn’t give me a right to ignore it. The certainty and that millions more people would have died and perhaps billions been enslaved if I hadn’t broken the Lunar Accord did not mean that I was innocent of the violation.

They interrogated me, got my entire story from when I had started building the hidden base on to the last few days. Through all of it, they were courteous and formal, very ‘by the book’. I’d been ready for rougher treatment, but the U.N. Security were polite, even collegial toward me.

Of course, I had some idea of what was going on outside. The guards all had tablets, and showed me a few articles now and then. The news media was in a complete feeding frenzy. The United Nations was pushing for a quick trial, so the papers said. I knew that’s because Shaunesey wanted me dead before people got their heads clear. But the journalists seemed a little unsure whether it was because they wanted a quick execution, or a quick trial to find me innocent so I could be decked out as a hero again.

People were still terrified. Millions were dead, and a couple of the enemy ships escaped. So much damage had been done, and people wanted an assurance that things would return to normal. Shaunesey was working on that fear in the press, and I could see some pieces where he had twisted things. But people were also hopeful, and they wanted a hero. A lot of people remembered that I had been named a hero once before, a long time ago. So the headlines were a wild mash of ‘Hero saves Planet’ mixed with ‘Mad Bomber Back Again’, and other lurid titles of similar flavors. The mob of humanity was always a fickle thing, and I began to wonder if this would go down precisely the way Shaunesey had planned it.

On the second day of my imprisonment, just two days before my trial was due to begin, I had an unexpected visitor. I hadn’t been allowed any visitors except a few carefully screened visits from SSI company lawyers, and they had to provide their credentials and thumb print scan. It seemed like someone was very nervous that I might have a rescue plan on the back burner somewhere. If so, they were worried for nothing. I was sticking this out, no matter how it ended.

Governor Clarke had spent a career learning to be efficient at cutting through U.N. red tape.

“Why governor, what a pleasant surprise,” I said, stretching and rising slowly from my cot. I’d only been down in Earth’s gravity a few days, and I was already tired of it. It had been hard to stay in shape in the small cell and would have been so much easier to just lie down all the time. But this trial could take months. I needed to be in good enough shape to handle it. So I’d disciplined myself to work out every day. I knew I’d made progress, but laying down was still more comfortable than standing in this gravity.

“I told you, please call me George,” he said.

I ducked my head a bit. “George, then. How’re things?”

“Better for me than for you. You’ve landed yourself in the pickle that we probably both saw coming, hmmm? This Shaunesey fellow is mighty peeved at you. I had to pull strings just to get in here to see you, he’s ordered you cut off.”

“I figured as much,” I replied. “What brings you here, though?”

Clarke must have burned a number of favors and called in some pretty significant debts to get in to see me. Which meant something was up. What was such a priority that he had to come in and see me now?

“I have been working with your defense crew,” Clarke said. “They’re running with the line that your best bet is to present the case as honestly as possible – I suspect you had a hand in that, lawyers are not a breed known for valuing honesty – and try to convince the court that there were extenuating circumstances that forced your hand. Throw you on the mercy of the court, more or less. After seeing the political climate here though, I have concerns about how merciful a United Nations court is likely to be toward you. Seeing as how the judge’s career will depend to some degree on the good will of this President Shaunesey. What did you do to anger him so much, anyway?”

“You really want to know?” I asked.

“It might help.”

I took a deep breath, let it out. “His wife was a United States diplomat before she died. She was in Beijing when I sent their ship home to them with a dozen nukes set to explode. She was among those killed in the blast,” I replied.

“Oh.”

“Yes, I don’t begrudge him his anger. If our positions were reversed, I’d be furious with him forever too.”

“I can understand his anger, but I’m not here to appease his emotions,” Clarke looked needle sharp now, his words clipped. “I don’t intend to allow him to commit injustice against you today over a transgression from long ago.”

I looked at him, alarmed. “You mustn’t plan anything illegal. Tell Thomas, too – no rescues, no last minute saves. I need to see this through.”

“No worries there, Nick. You know I’m a ‘by the book’ man myself. I’ve got some ideas to ensure that you’re given a fair shake, though.”

“You know they’re recording this entire conversation, right?” I asked.

“Of course. I’ve found it’s always polite to inform one’s enemies who they are facing.” Then he smiled at the camera. I’d seen the look before – on sharks.

W
e had
to wait until Dad was on the ground and in the hands of United Nations authorities before we could really begin to take action. I sat and glared at the newsfeeds, watching every second of his descent from orbit, his splashdown in the ocean just off the east coast of the United States. I saw his pickup go off just as he’d planned, and then the newsies lost track of him for a bit. The next news was a couple of hours later when it had been confirmed he was in United Nations hands, tucked into a cell somewhere in New York City.

I hated the sitting on my hands. It gave me too much time to worry about Dad. And when I wasn’t worrying about him, I was going over the battle in my mind, over and over – wondering if there was something I could have done differently that would have saved Kel. I missed her, and every time I thought about her driving her ship out ahead of mine to shield us from the incoming fire, it hurt. So the last thing I needed right now was more time to sit and think.

But the damned pardon didn’t start until he was officially in United Nations custody, so there was a limit to what I could do. He’d already contacted the SSI lawyers on Earth and Mars and set up a legal defense before he left. And I couldn’t get to the ground where I could actually do anything until after the pardon was active.

I had no intentions of leaving his fate in the hands of someone like Shaunesey. I wasn’t sure just what could be done, what pressures I could bring to bear, but I’d find a way. I began by contacting the public relations offices of our company, back on Mars. I asked for advice, and asked them to expedite, but it would take over an hour for a reply to come back, even if they were waiting for my call. Longer really, since they’d have to compile some sort of advice.

While I waited, I checked into the SSI holdings on Earth. Shaunesey said he’d been after the governments to turn them over, and a few smaller offices had. But most of our facilities were based in the United States, which had a long standing history of taking its sweet time doing what the U.N. ordered it to do. And now, with the order rescinded, I had access to just about everything my father’s company owned on Earth.

It was a little daunting. I knew Dad had a huge business. I hadn’t known just how wealthy importing uranium from Mars to Earth had made him. SSI did over four hundred billion in revenue annually and made eleven figures in profits each year, a good chunk of which went to Dad because of his stock. When Dad handed me the information for his accounts, he gave me access to nearly unlimited funds. Unless I was gonna try to buy a country, I could manage pretty much whatever I wanted.

We knew where he was being held, now. So I could start taking action. We had an SSI installation relatively close to New York City, out in western Massachusetts. The company had used it for holidays, entertaining special guests, conferences, and the like. The building was well-built, had state of the art security systems, and even had a helipad on the roof. I ordered a platoon of security forces shipped there to clear the place and secure it. That was going to be our base on Earth.

Once that ball was rolling, I looked into how to get down to the ground. SSI owned shuttles on Earth. Some of them had gone up when Houston was destroyed. But we still had a few others. I woke up a whole bunch of people, and they started prepping one of the shuttles to come and get me.

Then I called James and Glenn, Dad’s XO, up to the bridge of the Constellation. I thought about it another moment, then called Sam as well.

We were adrift without any spin so they floated in. James and Glenn took the time to re-orient themselves to my ‘up’, so that we were all right-side up to each other. Sam didn’t bother, so he was hanging there looking upside-down and a little silly. It made me feel even better about the decision I’d made.

“I’m going Earthside to see how I can help Dad,” I said. “James, I’d like you to stay here and keep the ships safe.”

“I can do that,” he replied. “How long do you think you’re going to be? We’ll need supplies.”

“Make me a list of what you need, and I’ll see that the shuttle ferries it up. I’m not sure how long this court thing will take. Might be fast, might take a while.” To be honest, I didn’t know much about how it was going to work at all. I needed to get advice from some lawyers, and fast. This was really just another sort of battle, and I had to understand how this sort of combat worked or I’d be no use to Dad at all.

I turned to Glenn. “You’ve worked closely with Dad for a long time. You know how he ticks, maybe better than any of the rest of us.

He hesitated a moment before replying. “I don’t know if anyone really knows how your father thinks, not completely. But yes, I have a better idea than most people. I guess that’s why he wanted me as his second in command on Defender.”

“And it’s why I want you down on Earth with me, helping me find a way to save him.”

“Of course, I’ll help,” Glenn replied.

“What about me?” Sam asked, spinning around at last.

“You’re coming with me too,” I replied.

“Ugh. Really? I have to breathe Earth soup?”

I smiled winningly. “Yes. I need someone to fetch coffee for me.”

He crossed his arms and mock-glared.

“Seriously? I need someone I can trust to manage security down there. I don’t trust the U.N. people. I don’t even know with one hundred percent certainty that I can trust our security people. But I can trust you.”

“You’ve got me, don’t worry,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “The shuttle is going to take a while to prep, and longer to get up here, but be ready to go when it arrives. James, keep me in the loop about anything odd. You’re our eyes in the sky up here.”

“You’ve got it.”

I still didn’t know how I was going to get my father out of this mess. But I knew I’d be better positioned to do something from the ground. In the back of my mind was the constant fear that all this was for nothing – that Shaunesey had already tied the noose around Dad’s neck, and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop him.

I
t took
them a while to get the shuttle up to us, and then more time to get back down, so it wasn’t until the next day when we finally landed. I had the shuttle touch down at my new base in western Massachusetts. Earth’s space to ground traffic control was in tatters. Every major spaceport was gone, destroyed by asteroid kinetic strikes. I was lucky there were even any SSI shuttles left intact. We’d had two, mothballed at an old spaceport in Florida. I took charge of one for the duration, and had the other designated to ferry supplies to the ships in space.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t legal to just land a shuttle anywhere you wanted. You were supposed to radio to one of the spaceports on the ground while you were still in orbit. You’d get clearance, get a course for orbital insertion, and then the computers would pretty much take over for re-entry. But there were no ground controls left to talk to right now. The little Florida base my shuttles took off from wasn’t answering our calls. My shuttle pilot said the place was almost abandoned – everyone evacuated the area when they figured out the enemy ships were targeting spaceports, and they hadn’t come back yet.

So we landed on the big field just outside the building. If someone wanted to fine me for the landing later, they could send me the bill. Right now, I was just as happy having a quick trip back into space sitting right outside my front door.

Our new headquarters on Earth was nowhere near as grand as it the corporate base on Mars. We had no bunkers here, no emergency shelters. On Mars... Well, Dad had designed the base to last. Anything short of a direct nuclear strike, and the lower levels would hold.

This place was like a cross between a fancy resort and an office building. The entire place was well made and well maintained. It had excellent security systems, which was part of why I picked it. And the guards had already swept the place. No bombs, no bugs, nothing they could find. at cropped up, and sales people to handle the sales of cargo we brought in, or purchasing of cargo to ship out.

I stepped down from the shuttle, which looked like the offspring of a jet and a dirigible. I stumbled a bit coming down the ramp – it was going to be a day or two before I had my Earth legs back under me. I watched Sam and steadied his arm once as we came down. It would take him even longer – he’d been out there in low or zero gravity for years. For me, it was less than a year since I’d gone back into space after graduation.

The front doors were glass. I made a mental note to check later if they were ballistic glass. I scanned the woodline, a good distance away but still well within the range of potential snipers. Yeah, I was feeling a little paranoid. But I also knew that some powerful people really were out to get us, so it felt justified. Men in suits with guns at their sides opened the doors for me when I came up to them.

“Thanks,” I said.

One of them nodded in reply. The other said, “Welcome to Earth, sir.”

It was strange being a ‘sir’. That was always Dad, not me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get used to that, but I figured I would need to if I was going to be effective in freeing him.

No sooner had I walked into the main lobby than I heard a familiar voice from off to one side.

“About time you got here,” Kel said.

I stood there gaping for what felt like forever.

She laughed, and the sound broke me from the spell. I ran forward and wrapped my arms around her. She froze for just a moment before she returned the embrace. Her hug was hesitant for a moment. Then it became fierce.

“You’re here. You’re really here,” I whispered. And she was. This was really Kel. I knew her scent, the feel of her, by heart.

I broke away from the hug and stood there staring into her eyes.

“How, Kel?” I asked.

“Yes, do tell,” said Sam. “We all thought you had gone down with the ship.” His voice was dry, but he was beaming.

“I managed to get myself and two crew members out in an escape pod,” she replied. “Have you ever tried to pack three people into one of those things? Horrible! Re-entry was the worst. I honestly thought none of us were going to make it.”

She told us the story quickly, with a promise of more details later when there was time. She and her two bridge crew fired off a last volley after sailing into the teeth of the enemy missiles. They knew their ship was done for; there was no way it would survive the carnage those missiles would wreak. The blast doors had already sealed the bridge off from the rest of the ship, and only one escape pod was still functioning. Even that pod was damaged – but it seemed like the only chance they had. Kel flatly refused to leave crew behind. So they all piled in – literally, piled on top of each other. They punched out just in time, and the force of the explosion kicked the pod a good distance clear of the fighting before it began its automatic descent into the atmosphere.

“It wasn’t until we splashed down that we realized the radio was dead,” Kel said. “We were in somewhere in the Pacific, we knew that much. But we floated there for a couple of days before we were picked up by a U.S. destroyer.”

“Lucky you got picked up by the U.S. forces,” Glenn observed.

“They saw us come down on radar and went to check it out. Took them a while to find us because the radio was dead. No radio, no beacon,” she said.

Once they were back ashore, Kel contacted corporate headquarters and found out I was already on my way down from the ships. Once she told them that she’d been captain of one of our ships, they didn’t waste any time getting her a fast flight over.

“Kel... I can’t tell you how good...” I broke off. My vision was getting a little blurry. “When I saw your ship go up...”

She made a shushing sound and smiled. “Tell me later, Thom,” she said. “Right now, your father is in trouble, right? How do we get him out of this mess? Executing him for his part in this is opportunistic bullshit.”

“I quite agree, miss,” said a voice from the entryway.

I whirled. “Governor Clarke?”

“In the flesh.”

My mind spun. First Kel, then Clarke? This was a day for unexpected arrivals and surprises, I supposed. Then I laughed. I could handle a few good surprises right now. And Clarke was an ally for sure.

“What brings you here?” I asked. “And how did you get here so fast?”

He laughed. “Well, as to getting here, I borrowed your courier ship. Actually, I took temporary control of it for the government. Sadly, that means those wonderful edicts that Shaunesey sent my way are probably still sitting in my desk comp, never to be acted on.” He looked at me. “Your people on Mars are still safe, Thomas, and will continue to be.”

“Thank you. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here, Governor,” I said.

“Please, call me George. Your father does, and you probably should too. I am here, my boy, because a friend needs my help. And whether he knows it or not, your father has always been a friend to me and to Mars. So his need is the need of Mars. And therefore, I am here to help. Or that’s the way I see it, anyway.”

I was a bit confused. “Not that I am ungrateful for any help you can provide, but how exactly can you help? You’re a bit out of your jurisdiction here, and as Shaunesey pointed out, Mars is a United Nations territory; you essentially work for Shaunesey.”

He grimaced. “My ‘boss’ and I do not see eye to eye on this. Or on many things. The old President was much more level headed. I worry that this trial will launch events that President Shaunesey does not entirely understand and cannot predict. Anyway, as for helping? I wasn’t always a Mars politician, Thom. I started my career here on Earth, and I still have a lot of old favors I can call in. I intend to call them all.”

W
e got
to planning right away. Clarke – or George, if I wanted to start calling him that – had already been in to see Dad. They seemed to be treating him well, anyway. We scanned the major newsfeeds. They were full of diatribe from Shaunesey’s office. It was loaded material, blaming Dad in a roundabout way for the attack, the damage, and the loss of life. Pure garbage, but for a frightened people who had no idea what the real story was, giving them a target for their ire was a powerful move.