She frowns. “Cray?”
How ignorant is this girl? Her innate intelligence won’t compensate for her lack of knowledge about the galaxy. Abel decides to begin at the beginning. “Are you familiar with the other worlds of the Loop?”
“Of course I am,” Noemi protests, but he brings them up on the viewscreen anyway, five worlds suspended in a circle like jewels strung on a golden chain.
First comes Earth, still vividly blue from its oceans despite the climatological havoc that is leading to the planet’s death. Next is Stronghold, a dull, chilly gray, reflecting the metallic ores dominating its surface. It is a world of miners, and a place where armaments and ships are built; so far as Abel knows, it remains the only colony world besides Genesis that sustains more than ten million humans. Then comes Cray, its harsh orange terrain evidence of its uninhabitable desert surface. Those few humans there—elite scientists, their students, and skilled technicians—live underground.
Next is Kismet, a small waterworld with very little landmass, an oasis for the richest and most famous. It glows the soft violet color of its vast aquatic surface. Finally, Genesis. Slightly larger than Earth, with even more temperate climates. Its vivid, welcoming green might be a picture taken of Earth long ago, millennia perhaps, when it remained healthy and lush.
“As you can see,” Abel says, focusing on the circle of planets projected above them, “we cannot reach Cray directly. Unless…”
“Unless what?” Noemi asks.
“Unless more Gates between the worlds have been built during the past three decades. I would be unaware of them.”
Abel has never had to admit not knowing something before. He doesn’t care for it.
“Build new Gates?” Noemi scoffs. “Earth did the exact opposite. They’ve loaded this Gate with too many defenses to ever get past, and turned space around the Kismet Gate into a minefield.”
“Why?”
Noemi turns toward him. The blue-white illumination from the screen shines on her face, reminding him just how young she is. “The war. Did they not program you to understand war?”
Abel could fully discuss the nations, weapons, causes, and outcomes of wars dating back to the conflicts between the Egyptian pharaohs and the ancient kingdom of Kush. As hard as it is for him to accept that he must die at this human’s command, it may be even more galling to have her talk down to him. “Basic military strategy would call for the use of the Kismet Gate as a second front.”
If Noemi has picked up on his dark mood, she shows no sign. “Exactly. Earth gave up their chance of a second front in the war to make sure the rebellion couldn’t spread to the other colony worlds. So they had to make the Kismet Gate an absolute barrier, to seal us off completely.”
Citizens of Genesis appear to have an exaggerated opinion of their political importance. But Abel keeps to the subject at hand. “Then the Gates shown on this chart are our only vectors of travel.”
He illuminates them, each Gate another point on the chain. The Earth Gate takes people from that world to Stronghold. The Stronghold Gate leads to Cray, the Cray Gate to Kismet, the Kismet Gate to Genesis—at least, before the mines were laid—and finally the Genesis Gate they’re currently orbiting, the one they intend to destroy, which leads back to Earth.
“I understand how the Loop works,” Noemi says. “But I don’t understand why Cray is the only place that will have a thermomagnetic device.”
Abel considers what she’s told him so far. “You won’t have had the opportunity to travel to another planet before. So you are unfamiliar with these other worlds.”
“They taught us the basics, but I’m short on the details. Obviously.”
He’s been stretching out this discussion because it reveals her ignorance. At some point Abel will have to analyze whether he has developed the capacity for passive aggression. “Cray’s planetary core is used to power the massive supercomputer there. As such, their mechanical systems have to tolerate intensely high levels of heat—”
“—which means they can use thermomagnetic devices that would be too risky somewhere else,” Noemi cuts in. “Right?”
She is, but Abel doesn’t bother admitting it. “If we’re to obtain one without anyone noticing us, Cray is the only place we can begin.”
She closes her eyes, breathes in deeply. Abel’s sophisticated emotional-recognition subroutines identify this as an attempt to gather courage. When she opens her eyes again and speaks, her voice is steady and clear. “Then we’ll have to go through the Genesis Gate. Past Earth, past Stronghold. Can we do that without being caught?”
For three decades, the only traffic through the Genesis Gate has been Earth’s attack vessels, mostly Damocles ships. Earth will no longer be on the alert for other ships coming from the Genesis system. Abel suspects they could pass through easily. However, he has spotted a flaw in Noemi’s thinking. “Kismet has far fewer security protocols in place. We would be much less likely to be seen. Also, we would then be only one Gate away from Cray.”
“The Kismet Gate has been mined, remember? Magnetic mines fill an area at least the size of my entire planet—nobody knows for sure, because no ship’s ever survived more than a few seconds without coming back through the Gate or being blown to bits.”
“My memory is eidetic, which means I remember every fact I am exposed to.” Especially ones she told him not five minutes prior. Abel may have to do what Noemi Vidal says, but he doesn’t have to be treated as if he has no more sense than a hammer. “The minefield is effective against human pilots. However, I could pilot through them, recalibrating shields to push the mines back.”
Noemi sits very still, studying him. The lights from the starry screen around them shine on her black hair. “Even the Queen and Charlie models couldn’t pilot with that kind of precision, and they’re some of the smarter ones.”
Apparently her memory is far from eidetic. “As I said earlier, I am a special prototype of Burton Mansfield’s. I possess talents and abilities beyond those of any other mech. Even my genetic material comes directly from Mansfield.” Most mechs’ genetic material is synthetic, tied to no one biological life-form. Abel, however, carries nearly as much of Mansfield’s DNA as a son would.