Only about a quarter of the elevator’s crew and passengers were killed as a result of explosive decompression before they managed to trigger the inner airlocks. The frigate took a lot of damage from High Brazilia’s orbital weapons and space force, but again another one of their angelic hackers wreaked havoc and the Hatteras and Cronin escaped to set sail for another system.
Some of those who had been involved with the Cabal or were otherwise doing very naughty things managed to survive. Other new leaders came from total obscurity, often straight off the streets. Everyone from community leaders to gang bosses found themselves in positions of power. Things stayed the same and things changed a lot. I think they were going to improve. I think humanity did good purely by not pulling itself apart in the face of massive change.
The transition could’ve been a lot worse. Whenever anyone tried to take advantage others would see them coming and step up. How this didn’t end up in total chaos I don’t know. Maybe humanity was just sick of fighting. Maybe we were growing up, though that seemed less likely. In retrospect what we had done was stupid on such a scale that the word irresponsible didn’t really cover it. We had not thought it through and we had got very, very lucky. Not just the seven of us but everyone in the system; it could’ve been so much worse. Well, Buck hadn’t been very lucky. I didn’t feel too lucky either.
Mudge had played a dangerous game. His media manipulation had been as canny as anything the Cabal could offer, though a lot more reckless. If anyone thought to check, and I reckoned someone would one day, he’d screened the footage that God showed of people watching our little revolution show. He’d made sure that God showed none of the places where it was bad – child molesters being lynched, Fortunate Sons opening up into crowds, government and corporate buildings being torched. He’d gambled that most people would be too overwhelmed by the news and too relieved by the apparent end of the war to misbehave too badly. Then when people got the idea that this was a celebration and not a riot they would act as their own good example. It worked, but like I said, risky. Our world could just as easily have burned.
So why wasn’t I holed up somewhere waiting for death? Going out surrounded by hookers, drugs and good whisky? Why was I on this fucking ship going back to Sirius, a place I’d sworn I’d never return to? We just seemed to be pushing our luck further and further; eventually something had to kill us all. You can’t buck the odds for this long and you don’t continue to take risks like this and expect to live.
I felt like we’d done our bit. Now it was time for the government and the military to step in and deal with Demiurge, Crom and the Black Squadrons, but this wasn’t enough for Gregor. In fact, he pointed out that surely that was the whole point of what we had done: that we ourselves had to start taking responsibility rather than hoping someone else would handle it. Gregor said that we had to deal with Crom. By the time the governments reacted it could be too late. More to the point, he knew how and where Crom was going to be released. He was going no matter what. I was going to argue – it just seemed such a waste after all we’d been through – but I was dying anyway and I owed him. I hadn’t looked very hard for him when I’d got back. Mudge had but I hadn’t.
The various governments of Earth were coming to a consensus surprisingly quickly, aided by the newfound transparency, that the Cabal, Rolleston, Cronin and the Black Squadrons were all bad. They were putting plans into place to deal with the threat posed by Crom and Demiurge. There were just a couple of things that were slowing them down.
They had lost contact with the colonial fleets. Any ship they sent they didn’t hear back from, presumably because they were being sequestered by Demiurge despite the ships going out with God in their systems. The colonial fleets’ equipment was the most up to date. Although Earth’s defences were supposed to be top notch, the ships they had in-system tended to be two or three generations old. They were serviceable craft that had made it through the war but no match for the modern ships on the front line. Not surprisingly, the various Earth governments were not in an incredible hurry to send their protection out of system to deal with Demiurge or Crom.
All this, as well as how disorganised inter-governmental cooperation was at the best of times, had pretty much ground possible responses to Demiurge and Crom to a halt.
That was when Air Marshal Kaaria of the Kenyan Orbital Command came to visit us. He was almost as pissed off with us as he was with Rolleston. We had, after all, pretty much compromised all military operational security. He had a point. However, we hadn’t fried most of his C amp;C staff. He wanted Rolleston dead nearly as much as we did. The fearsome African officer pulled some strings and found us a ship and suggested that we do the rest of our healing en route to somewhere we could help undo some of the damage we’d done. I felt he was being a little unfair, and regardless of how much he wanted Rolleston’s head and despite how much I hated the bastard I had no interest in fighting the Major again.
Mudge had listened to Gregor’s plan to go to Sirius and then said no. He said he had too much to do on Earth and besides, he wanted to capitalise on his fame. One of the transmissions that caught up with us just before we set sail had a news story in it about certain youths who were starting to dress like Mudge. I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or worried by that, maybe a bit of both. Pagan also decided against coming. He didn’t see what he had to offer and he felt he’d done enough. Besides, he thought that he should concentrate his efforts on finding a way to deal with Demiurge.
Balor was in. I wasn’t sure why, maybe for the thrill of it. Maybe he just needed a bit of life affirmation after getting his arse kicked, and nothing affirms life like near-certain death.
Gibby was in, which was good because we needed someone to pilot the ship. He was quiet and withdrawn. I just hoped that he didn’t want to follow Buck immediately. On the other hand, this was a good place to do that.
I had assumed that Morag wasn’t going to go. There was no need for her to. She had a distant look in her eyes, her new eyes, when we were discussing it. Finally she announced that she was coming with us. I started to object. I wanted to tell her that she’d done it, finally made something that could be better for her. That she could live and hopefully live well. That she would be needed to help deal with Demiurge. Anything to make her stay on Earth so she didn’t throw away her life on this suicide mission, but one look from her told me I’d forgone the right to have such opinions.
Pagan said what I’d been thinking but she was intent on going. She told us that she had to go. Pagan asked her if it was her or Ambassador that wanted to go. Morag silenced him with a look too.
Twenty minutes later Pagan, looking like a beaten man, changed his mind and agreed to come with us. I asked him if he was sure; he said he was. With Morag going Rannu was in, which I was thankful for – the quiet Nepalese was a solid trooper.
The air marshal got us the ship and the other gear we needed. They even delivered it to High Atlantis for us. The Atlantean authorities laid on a shuttle to take us up. Probably because they couldn’t think of anything better to do with us after Cat bullied their security services into not arresting everyone.
The shuttle’s airlock had been about to close when Mudge reappeared.
‘I figured this is going to be a pretty good story as well. Besides, clearly we’re invincible,’ he’d said.