Gravity's Embrace: Nearly there!
43,455 words. Less than 7K to go! Plus, I know exactly what I need to write now. The only problem is going to be if the final chapter doesn't come out long enough - that means the epilogue will have to stretch to a few thousand words (which is... acceptable, but not ideal).
This is where everything starts to come together - the characters, the twist from last chapter, the politics, the technology, all of it. If I'd gone back and revised the rest of the story, it would be stuffed full of hints and foreshadowing about what's to come. But I haven't, so it gets to be full of surprises instead.
Read. Enjoy. And come back sometime in the next few days for Chapter 11: The Gods of Mars.
Prologue: Scene 1
Chapters 1 & 2: Scene 2, Scenes 3-5, Scene 6, Scene 7
Chapter 3: Scene 8, Scenes 9-10
Chapter 4: Scene 11, Scenes 12-13
Chapter 5: Scenes 14-15
Chapter 6: Scenes 16-17, Scenes 18-20
Chapter 7: Scenes 21-24
Chapter 8: Scenes 25-27
Chapter 9: Scenes 28-30
Chapter 10 (Scenes 31-33)
Scene 31
The shuttle swung slowly through its orbit, guided by my interrogator through her implants. Her companion - a precise copy of me, though admittedly better-dressed - sat off to one side, reading a holonovel. Areatha, Carol, and I were on the floor against the wall, guarded by an angry-looking purple robot.
Carol, one eye on the servitor, leant over and whispered in my ear. "They're better at this kidnapping lark than you are."
I blinked. "Wha'?"
The Cascadian scientist shrugged. "You, what, took over the spaceship I was in? All very eighteenth century, but hardly stylish. They, on the other hand…" She glanced from the pilot to the reader (I had to come up with some suitably degrading nicknames for these people, this was getting awkward). "They used deception - pretending to be you - to snatch me from the middle of a fortified town, under the nose of my guard-slash-guide. And they used a bright purple robot to do it."
On Carol's far side, Areatha nodded. "She's got a point."
"Don't you start."
Carol had gone back to studying our captors. "So who are these people, anyway?"
I sighed. There didn't seem much point trying to hide it. "You know the legendary CLS Exeter St. David, conqueror of the Russian Empire and whatnot?"
The elderly scientist frowned at me. "Yes…?"
I nodded at the man who looked so much like me. "That's him."
Carol blinked. She stared at me. Then she stared at him. Then back to me. "... what?"
I shrugged. "They say we're clones; I don't accept that, but they're definitely the ones who visited Cascadia."
"Oh." Carol brought one hand to her face and pondered this. "Is he less obnoxious than you?"
"Uh." I glanced at Areatha. "I don't think I'm obnoxious?"
"Ehhh…" Carol glanced across at the man one more time. "Well, it's worth a shot." She skated across the floor, crossing in front of me and keeping an eye on the servitor, until she was within easy speaking distance. "He-ey," she said, fluttering her eyelashes and looking (I felt) shamefully ridiculous. "A little bird tells me you've been to my quaint old country…"
Areatha shuffled across into the space Carol had vacated. "She's right," she hissed, "you are obnoxious. But with any luck, so's he." I gave her a hurt look, and she grinned. "Don't worry - I still like us more."
"Gosh, aren't you sweet." I grimaced and looked around the cabin. "Any ideas? You used to own the servitor - any chance New Etruria builds them with enough intelligence for that to matter?"
"I'd have more luck seducing it with my womanly wiles," Areatha said. She leant back against the wall, apparently at ease. "Quick quiz," she went on in a louder voice. "Why are we even prisoners?"
The man with the holonovel (which admittedly sounds like the title of a holonovel itself) broke off his conversation with Carol and looked over. "Because that's what happens when you're taken captive," he said. "Believe me, I know."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Areatha pushed herself upright, hair falling back into place around her. The purple robot tensed slightly, and our pilot turned to look, but no-one attacked. "But seriously: why are we prisoners? Don't we all want the same thing - his ship turned back over to one or the other of our governments?" She glanced at the twice-abducted scientist. "Sorry, Carol, but you're outnumbered."
The crew of the shuttle didn't answer immediately, exchanging a thoughtful glance. I decided it might be a good idea to tip the balance a little further in our favour. "Assume for a moment that your theory about us is right," I said. "Doesn't that make us you? Isn't their something weird about locking yourself up?"
The pilot grinned suddenly, nodding at her companion. "Sounds like what you do with your emotions all the time, Exy."
"I was thinking the same thing," Areatha muttered at my side.
The man with the book - the Celt, I abruptly decided I'd call him - shot glares at Areatha and the Etruscan, then met my gaze. "To answer your actual question," he said, "under the Natal Notification Writ of the Modern World, which virtually every nation has signed, you're considered separate individuals. Depending on the circumstances of your creation, you might've been eligable to claim some of my property, but a, you were created without my consent, and b, I don't have any anyway."
I stared at him. "The Naval Notary what now? How do you know that?"
"It's usually known as NaNoWriMo World," he said with a shrug. "And I am allowed to know things that aren't about spaceships, yes?"
"Obviously - but I don't know about NaMoSky… whatever."
The Celt sniffed. "Clearly the Dutch missed some things when they copied you."
"He looked it up," the Etruscan called over her shoulder. "He does like to look smart, does my Exy boy."
Areatha took a step away from the wall, drawing the servitor's attention, along with everyone else's. "If we can put the self-deprecation session on hold for a bit, I was actually serious. Why can't we all - sorry, Carol - work together?"
The Etruscan turned fully towards her, two naked women facing each other across a starship bridge. "Let me put it like this," she said. "What are you made from?"
Areatha tilted her head, then raised one arm and pinched her skin. "Um, skin, muscles, bone, lots of rather icky fluids…"
The Etruscan swiped her hand sharply sideways. "I'll rephrase. What were you made from?"
Carol, who had somehow taken possession of the Celt's holonovel, glanced up. "I think the answer she's looking for is 'nanotech'."
The Etruscan nodded. "Nanotech. And how many inches would you trust someone made of, or simply by, nanotechnology - the sort of technology that's banned by a dozen global treaties?"
"... probably not a single one." Areatha sighed, folded her arms across her chest, and leant back against the wall. "And it's no good me protesting that I know I'm not an evil spy made of grey goo and mind control, because-"
The Etruscan joined in: "'That's exactly what you would say'. Yes. So we'll bring you along for what you know, but until a decent lab can take a look at you, you'd better resign yourself to being considered a potential threat."
"Speaking of what they know," the Celt called, standing up to look out of the viewport, "you can't tell me you didn't notice that."
The Etruscan stuck out her tongue at him. "Obviously," she said, "but I was waiting until we were close enough that I could do… this."
The window - screen, rather - flickered, and then a shape filled it. Blocky and ungainly, with huge pointless spikes stuck on that made it look like nothing more than an axe trying to mate with a horned cardboard box, my heart nevertheless jumped into my throat when I saw it: CLS Exeter St. David, hanging in the blackness of space.
"There I- it is," the Celt said, his voice thick. He swallowed, looked around at us, then back to the image. "Time for you to start earning your keep."
Scene 32
The ship was in zero-gravity when we floated on-board, logically enough, but it didn't stay that way for long. As soon as the Celt reached my isolation chamber and latched on the first implant, he started to bring up the engines. Within half an hour we were under thrust - only a little, but enough to alter our orbit.
"The Chinese will figure out what we're doing before too long," he explained to Carol, to whom he seemed to have taken quite a liking. "I'd rather we not be easy to find when they do."
"I get that," the Cascadian said. "But why not just head straight back to the Celtic League?"
The Celt glanced at the Etruscan, who was hopping absently from foot to foot by the wall of the chamber, timing how long she took to come down. "We're still in some… disagreement as to where to fly."
"I stole your ship fair and square," the Etruscan called. "You're still my prisoner, remember - and if I can't have my way with you, I can at least do what I want with the ship."
I glanced at Areatha and found her making a sour face. "Apparently I can be quite obnoxious too," she murmured. "And here I thought making friends with you was just a natural part of my personality."
"Assuming she has anything in common with you at all," I whispered back.
Areatha rolled her eyes. "Seriously, this is an obvious cloning situation. I don't see any reason not to take them at face value." She patted my knee. "It doesn't make us any less... us, though."
"Hm." I looked back at the people who claimed to be our originals. Right now, they weren't making a good show of things.
"-just grab the modules off you and take it," the Etruscan snapped. "You haven't got anything on this ship that can stand up to Basileia Autokrateira Zoë Porphyrogenita, and you know it."
"And you haven't got implants that can handle a Celtic League ship," the Celt retorted. "If you want to plug in and see what an error message sent straight to your brain feels like, be my guest!"
"I love it when you talk dirty," the Etruscan said, but by this time Carol had had enough.
"So the answer is that you're too busy bickering to do so," she said briskly. "Fine. Asked and answered. Next question: is there any reason for me not to go take a look at the generator right away?"
Our jailors fell silent, looking at each other. "Uh," the Celt said eventually. "Because we don't know where it is?"
Carol rolled her eyes. "Fine. Then can I go and find it?"
The Celt glanced at the Etruscan again, who grinned. "Bless; you're asking for permission to send her off on a tour of your ship. I knew you'd admit you were mine eventually."
"Actually," the Celt said, "I was going to say you should go with her."
"... hmm." The Etruscan pursed her lips, looking him over, then shrugged. "Fine. But if you try to run back to the League…"
"I know, I know." He waved her off and turned back to his displays. "See you later."
I tugged on Areatha's arm and got to my feet. "We'll come with you," I said.
The Etruscan didn't even look at me. "No. You won't."
"But we can help," I protested. "We've both worked with the generator before-"
The Etruscan turned on me, her hair swirling around her. "Counterpoint," she said, "I don't trust you as far as I can throw you under five gravities. So you'll stay right here."
She swept out of the isolation chamber, Carol following in her wake. I sat back down, looked at Areatha, and shrugged.
"I guess we'll stay here."
Scene 33
On the first day, Areatha and I sat in the isolation chamber. Sometimes the Celt was there with us; more often he wandered off into the ship, presumably to join in the experimentation on the generator. He didn't leave a single module behind that I could have used to interface with my ship. I know - I checked.
The second day was much the same. Areatha and I reverted to playing strategy games again, this time entirely in our heads. Strangely, the randomness of our dice rolls tended to vary depending on who thought them.
On the third day, the Celt and the Etruscan floated into the isolation chamber. We were in freefall again, though he tended to engage thrust every couple of hours to further randomise our course. The Etruscan bobbed to a halt in front of me, her hair a dark halo around her. "Come with us," she said.
I nodded and pushed myself into the air. Areatha followed suit, but the Etruscan shook her head. "Only him; not you."
I frowned at her, then shrugged and sat back down. "Not me, then."
The Etruscan scowled at me. "Yes, you." She pushed off, floating towards me, but I swung my arms up and deflected her.
"No," I said calmly. "Either we both go, or neither of us."
On the fourth day, she tried again, sauntering across the room with her hair pulled back. "Hey, you," she said in her best husky voice. "Why don't we sneak off somewhere and spend a little time chatting?"
I rolled my eyes and turned back to my game. Areatha looked at her over my shoulder and snorted. "I can't believe I ever thought that sort of thing would work."
On the fifth day, the Celt came to see me. "Please," he said, bobbing against the wall, "I need your help."
I raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
He sighed, overly-dramatically. "For the sake of the Celtic League," he said, "and for the whole world, will you please come down to the lab? This is important."
I glanced over at Areatha, who was sleeping at the time. "Both of us."
"No," the Celt said, "just you."
I rolled my eyes and picked up my holonovel again. "No. And you really need to learn to lie better." I smirked. "Which I guess means I need to take my own advice."
On the sixth day, Carol floated into the room. "I hear you're being stubborn," she said without preamble.
Areatha grinned. "He's good at that."
"I'd noticed." Carol folded her arms. "I need your help."
I released my holonovel, let it bob in the air. "If you need our help, we're happy to come," I said.
"I don't," Carol replied. "I need your help. I don't need hers."
"Which is interesting." I leant back in the air, stretching. "Because you know she was the one who worked out most of the secrets of your generator - the things it could do that you didn't realise it could. So why me and not her?"
"Because-" Carol cut herself off, shook her head.
I sighed. "Is it really as simple as you not liking her? We weren't actually sleeping together, Carol."
The scientist gritted her teeth. "I'd figured that out." She drummed her fingers against her leg, then pushed off the floor with one foot and drifted up slightly. "Fine. I need you because you worked with the generator while I was making it."
"I'm intrigued," I allowed. "But I'm still not coming without Areatha."
"Fine," Carol growled. "Both of you, then. Now get moving."
She led us down into the bowels of my ship, through a hole cut in a bulkhead, to a room that I hadn't even known existed. Sitting in the centre, mounted on a plinth, was a cube-shaped mass of electronics, wired into the ship's systems. I swam through the air around it, studying it. "Well, it's neater than yours."
Carol glared at me. "Yeah. Want to know what else it is? Not the same thing at all."
Areatha glanced at me. "What? This is what you copied to make your version."
"We copied the visible effects," Carol corrected. "Weapons stop when they hit it. It turns opaque when it's on. But this…" She ran a hand through her hair, which had floated free of its tie. "It's wired to a bunch of emitters on the hull-"
"Those are supposed to be scanners!" I exclaimed. "I wondered why I was never getting improved performance…"
Carol waved me into silence. "Best I can tell, each emitter sets up a standing wave in the structure of space-time. It propagates out, away from the hull - spreading out as it goes, you see - and when it spreads far enough to intersect with the one from the next emitter over, you get the black wall we saw."
Areatha frowned. "A black wall of… what, exactly?"
Carol shrugged. "More data needed. Some sort of manifestation of the quantum vacuum, I think. It stops everything dead, but…" She pushed at her hair again. "But it's not very good!" she said. "It only works if every single emitter is online - the intersection is crucial - and it's not even reactionless! Every weapon that hits it knocks the ship about, and-"
"And the drive won't work while it's up." I pushed off the wall, diving towards the generator. "Newquay! That's why the ship was bouncing all over the place over the Pentarchy."
Carol nodded. "The Montenegrins weren't quite as useless as they looked."
"I dunno," Areatha muttered, "have you ever met anyone from the Neo-Ambrosian Republic?"
I flapped my hand to silence her. "Okay, so this is something completely different to what we worked on," I said. "So… why do you need me?"
Carol glowered, but not at either of us. "Because like an idiot, I told your clones-or-whatever about our generator. And now they want me to duplicate it, quote, 'and I'm sure the Celtic League - you mean New Etruria - whatever, will share it with Cascadia'." She grabbed her hair, yanked it back, and shoved it back into its band. "And I can't. I don't remember enough of the details. So I'm hoping… well, you can get the rest."
"Ah." I studied her expression, the slump in my shoulders. Then I fished in my pocket and pulled out a computer chip. "Will this help?"
Areatha's breath caught. "Exy!" she exclaimed. "You didn't-?"
Carol was hanging in the air, staring at me. "You've got my data." It wasn't a question. "But… how?"
I tossed the chip from hand to hand, an easy trick in zero-G. "I pulled it off the computers before we left the moonbase," I said. "I've had it with me ever since."
Carol gaped. "And you didn't tell me?"
"Or me," Areatha put in. "He didn't tell me either."
"It never came up." I swam across the room and slotted it into the one terminal. After a few seconds, a holographic diagram of Carol's messy, tangled generator sprang into existence. "Do you forgive me?"
The scientist couldn't tear her eyes off the blueprints. "Help me build it," she whispered, "and I'll be your slave for life."
Areatha laughed. "Oh, Carol," she said, "haven't you noticed? He doesn't want that sort of thing. Believe me - I've tried."
So on the seventh day we scoured the ship, searching out all the parts we might need. That included several transmitter modules, which the Celt insisted on thoroughly deprogramming first. It made them harder to use, but that's security for you.
On the eighth day we assembled the skeleton of the generator, the bare outline of its structure. We had to substitute several key parts, but we were reasonably sure they would function.
The ninth, tenth, and eleventh days were devoted to increasingly fiddly wiring. Areatha offered to help out, and once she'd tied her hair back to keep it contained, she did a better job than either of us. At one point the Celt wandered by, and couldn't keep his eyes off her. Honestly, some people.
On the twelfth day, we ran our first test. A familiar bubble formed around the generator, but flickered unstably. Despite all of my efforts using the modules now clamped to my arms, it collapsed in seconds.
Despite the setback, Carol was delighted. "It took six weeks to get a result that good before," she told us when we closed down for the night.
On the thirteenth day, we managed to produce a stable field, and ramp it all the way up until it turned black. Carol announced that we were ready for the first proper trial run, one that would enclose the entirety of my ship in the momentum-sapping field.
On the fourteenth day, I was woken by the sound of my own voice - the Celt's, rather - blazing over the speakers. "Multiple nuclear detonations detected in cis-Lunar space. All passengers to the bridge immediately."
Oh, Belfast.