Heart of Granite by James Barclay

Author:James Barclay [Barclay, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

The need for alternate energy changed the global landscape. Wind harvesters ploughed the heavens, their kilometres-long cables tethering them to earth-bound batteries; every roof glittered with solar panels; coasts were awash with tidal generators. But biofuels could not hold sway in the fields when so many billions needed food. The war began for land. Land to feed your own and damn the rest.

Professor Julia Nicholls, When The Earth Stopped Giving

It was plain none of the squad trusted him and Moeller was comfortable with that, or so it looked to Valera. The Mips would report it, but there were a hundred reasons for him to visit a squad in isolation. It meant Inferno-X could see his eyes. Valera was quietly impressed but she regarded him with a healthy suspicion nonetheless.

‘Get Flight Commander Moeller a coffee, Stepanek.’ ‘How do you take it, sir?’ asked Stepanek.

‘White no sugar,’ said Moeller.

Valera indicated a chair. ‘Take a seat, sir.’

Moeller sat and was followed by the rest of the squad, crowding close and staring at him like he was a zoo exhibit. Stepanek handed him his coffee and Valera could see that Moeller was not about to deliver positive news, it was just a question of how bad.

‘So, we’re honoured,’ said Valera. ‘You know that fraternising with InfernoX currently carries a health warning?’

‘I think I’m already infected by implication.’ He sipped his coffee, nodding appreciatively though it was sure to be as crap as everyone else’s. Then he set it down. ‘Listen closely. I trust you all and I want your confidence in return. Your friend and my pilot, Max Halloran, is in deep, deep trouble and all official channels to help him are closed, all file work is complete. There is nothing I can do. At dawn tomorrow, assuming the data point calculations are correct, his drake will be reengineered. That is all the time we have to save both drake and pilot.’

‘So we break him out,’ said Stepanek into the shocked silence. ‘Storm the fucking place.’

‘And what then?’ said Moeller quietly. ‘He’ll be a fugitive and you’ll all be criminals. Think what would happen to all of you.’

‘Then we strike. Other squads will support. Show Kirby we won’t fight until Max is freed,’ said Redfearn.

‘And what then?’ repeated Moeller. ‘Kirby’s orders are still carried out, and one by one, you’re all disciplined for insubordination. Only the strike against the Maputo is keeping us from bee-lining to the Red Sea right now, for a regeneration cycle. If you strike, we’ll pass the Maputo baton to the Steelback, the Flinthorn and the Ironclaw. Then what leverage do you have? You’ll destroy yourselves and Inferno-X. This is still a war.’

Valera found herself fighting a rising despair and Moeller’s deconstruction of their options merely deepened it.

‘We have to do something,’ she whispered. ‘What can we do?’

‘Tread carefully. I am neither deaf nor blind on this behemoth, much as our ExO loves to think I am. Max has the very slightest opportunity and he’ll have to see it and act on it.

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