“You have purged all the air everywhere but the bridge,” Control said, after a minute. “You have just killed two Rraey.”
“Jesus Christ,” Ocampo said, clearly exasperated. “It’s not me! I’m not in control of this ship! You are! You are the one who is doing this! You’re the murderer, not me! Why are you doing this?”
“Enough,” Control said. By this time I could see on my simulated sensors that the Chandler had completed its disembarkation process and was beginning to accelerate away from Equilibrium base. This would be the point where Control would have no choice but to cut its losses and try to either disable or destroy the Chandler. I was curious to find out what would happen next.
What happened next was that a ping hit my personal set of sensors. It was a signal that was meant for the bomb, nestled next to my brain in my box.
It was supposed to detonate the bomb, killing me.
What it did instead was launch a dozen missiles from the Chandler.
Let’s just say I had a philosophical disagreement with the whole “blow up my brain” strategy. And this was my editorial comment on that plan.
I think I actually heard a squawk of surprise from Control as those dozen missiles popped up on its sensors.
There were three ships aside from the Chandler docked at Equilibrium station: one a refurbished Colonial Union frigate like the Chandler, one that looked like a purpose-built trade ship to me, and one of a design I didn’t recognize, so probably an alien ship. I imagined that all three of them were like the Chandler, currently being repurposed for whatever asshole plan Equilibrium had up its sleeve for each of them.
I tasked a missile to each ship.
If those ships had crews on station, it’s possible that they could have stopped the missiles. But if all they had were brains in boxes, not given control of their own ships, then they were sitting ducks.
Each of those missiles hit home, crippling but not entirely destroying the ships.
Intentional on my part. If there were other brains in boxes in those ships, they didn’t deserve to die at my hand.
They didn’t deserve any of the horror that happened to them.
Six missiles aimed for Equilibrium base’s weapon arrays, because I didn’t want them to have a chance to mess up my getaway with a well-placed missile, or two, or ten.
One missile homed in on the Equilibrium base energy generator, because I figured if they were worried about things getting dark and cold, they would have less time to worry about little old me, or the Chandler.
One missile went to the base communication array, to make it more difficult to get the word out. They’d undoubtedly try to launch some skip drones, but I’d already configured my beam weapons to burn those out before they got anywhere close to skip distance. Factoring in tracking lag from the speed of light would be tricky. But I’d had time to practice.
That left one missile.
That one went to my best guess as to where Control was.
Because fuck that guy.
Yes, you could say that I’d been busy, using the Chandler’s outside cameras to scope out the base, and double-checking the information with the data I had taken from Ocampo’s PDA.
I knew I was going to have one chance to get it right. Any misses and everything suddenly became a lot more complicated.
Fortunately I still had a couple dozen missiles left.
But as it turns out I didn’t need them. When I launched the missiles I was still really close in to Equilibrium base. The targets had anywhere from ten to twenty-five seconds to respond. Which might have been enough in a battle situation.
But as a surprise? When the base and ships were unprepared for attack and the only person who could have raised the alarm was being kept busy with an argument with the very confused and increasingly hostile Secretary Ocampo?
Nope. Not enough time.
Every missile hit its mark.
The resulting chaos was glorious to me.
Glorious.
“Hello?” Ocampo said, and I realized that from his point of view, nothing had happened. He was still waiting for a response from Control.
I’m sorry, Secretary Ocampo, I thought at him. Control isn’t likely to respond to you at this point.
“Why not?”
Because I just stuffed a missile down its fucking gullet, that’s why.
“What?”
I just attacked Equilibrium’s base, I thought at him. Twelve missiles, all in the right places. It’s going to keep them busy while the three of us get to skip distance.
“What?” Ocampo said again. He clearly wasn’t getting it.
“You mean we’re going back?” Vera Briggs said. “Back home? Back to the Colonial Union?” It was, honestly, the first time I remember her speaking a complete sentence.
Yes, I said. That’s the plan. Back to Phoenix Station. Where I think they will be very interested in what Secretary Ocampo has to say for himself.
“You can’t do that,” Ocampo said.
Take you back to the Colonial Union? I asked. Yes I can. Yes I will. In fact, that’s what I was waiting to do.