Fire With Fire-eARC Read online

  FIRE WITH FIRE - eARC

  Charles E. Gannon

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  Baen Books by Charles E. Gannon

  The Starfire Series:

  Extremis (with Steve White)

  The Ring of Fire Series:

  1635: Papal Stakes (with Eric Flint)

  Fire with Fire

  To purchase these and all Baen Book titles in e-book format, please go to www.baen.com.

  Fire with Fire

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Charles E. Gannon

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3883-7

  Cover art by Sam Kennedy

  First Baen printing, April 2013

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: TK

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  My profound thanks go to—

  —my loyal legion of advance readers, but particularly Tom MacCarrol;

  —Ian Tregillis, PhD, high-energy physicist at Los Alamos, who vetted the theoretical logic of the Wasserman Drive;

  —my late mother, who believed that I could and should pursue the calling and life of an author;

  —and my late father, who imbued me with his own interest in the future and the limitless possibilities of space.

  But above all, this book is…

  DEDICATED TO:

  My wife Andrea, without whom it would never have been written.

  Interstellar shift links operative as of July, 2118

  (max shift range: 8.35 ly)

  (Biogenic worlds are labeled in BOLD FACE)

  Book One:

  CONTACT

  Prologue

  Perry City, Luna

  September, 2105

  Captain Chen of Taiwan’s External Security Bureau stood very straight when his temporary commander—USSF Admiral Nolan Corcoran—rounded the corner. Chen bowed quickly. “Admiral Corcoran, I—”

  Corcoran, a tall, broad-shouldered man whose sharp blue eyes and trim physique belied his advancing age, raised a silencing hand. He ignored Captain Chen’s waiting covert ops team, and moved instead to the cryogenic suspension unit resting on a gurney just behind them. “Is that the intruder?”

  “Yes, Admiral. We found him right outside the door to your quarters. I’m sure you have the report by now.”

  “Yes,” answered a second man who came around the same corner that Corcoran had. “But the details are sketchy.”

  Chen did not recognize the man, who spoke with an English accent. “Apologies, sir: I relayed what I had at the time.”

  The tall, thin Englishman looked up from his dataslate. “So you weren’t present at the incident?”

  Chen stood straighter, stared straight ahead. “Nonetheless, I am the team leader, sirs.”

  Corcoran canted his head toward the Englishman. “Mr. Downing is not implying you were at fault, Captain Chen. We know it’s your job to report quickly and to take responsibility for what happens on your watch. Even if you weren’t there yourself. Now, what more have you learned since alerting us?”

  “The subject—Mr. Riordan—was detected near your quarters at 2020 hours GMT, Admiral. He was behaving in a suspicious manner, apparently attempting to force entry. Since you had shared classified information with him earlier today, we feared that he intended to steal additional, sensitive data from your suite.”

  Downing stared at the cryogenic suspension unit with unblinking brown eyes. “And he resisted so strongly that you had to render him unconscious and stick him in a cold cell?”

  Chen felt sweat rising on his upper lip. “That was, in hindsight, an excessive response. However, when accosted, Riordan turned sharply and his hand was concealed in a bag. Our operative had originally conjectured it might hold tools, but now feared that it might conceal a weapon. So the subject was—subdued.”

  Corcoran nodded, but, Chen noted, without the peripheral signs of approval that were common among Western commanders. “That explains why he’s unconscious. Why did you put him in a cold cell?”

  Chen’s upper lip was now thoroughly wet with perspiration. “Sirs, you were on the Far Side. I had no way of knowing if you had received our communications. And we had to act quickly.”

  Downing folded his arms. “Why?”

  “I reasoned that Mr. Riordan’s books might have made him too well-known for us to detain until you returned. And if the local authorities had discovered him in our custody, that would have necessitated explaining why my team is here at all, thereby attracting more attenti—”

  “Yes, I see the problem,” Corcoran said. And Chen saw that he meant it, but was also disappointed: the American flag officer—famed for his boldness—would probably have waited longer, accepted a greater risk to avoid this outcome. Because now that Caine Riordan was in cold sleep, there was no way to awaken him without calling attention to the covert activities being undertaken on Luna. Which meant that—

  “Have you informed our contacts that we will need to initiate a ‘missing, presumed dead’ scenario to cover up Mr. Riordan’s disappearance?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Very good. Mr. Downing will need access to the corridor security footage. We’ll overwrite the recording of the incident with ‘neutral view’ footage. See to that quickly, Rich: it would be just our luck for someone to be reviewing the video logs already.”

  The Englishman grumbled. “Let’s just hope we’re not too late.” He moved off to establish communication with their operative inside Perry City’s security force. Corcoran turned back to Chen. “And what were the contents of the bag?”

  Chen handed it to the admiral, who looked inside as Downing called over, “We’re clear; no spot checks on the security footage.”

  The retired admiral stared down into the bag for several seconds before handing it back to Chen. “Keep the contents with Mr. Riordan for now. I’ll have need of them later.”

  Chen did not allow himself to look puzzled. “Yes, sir.”

  Downing had returned. He looked at Caine Riordan’s deathly white face, made blue by the glass of the cryocell’s lid. “You know, I believed Riordan when he said he wouldn’t reveal our work here.” He shook his head, ran a hand rearwards over his prominent widow’s peak. “Somehow, I still believe him.”

  Corcoran’s response was quiet. “Well, that’s a moot point now.”

  Downing shrugged. “No tools for breaking and entering, then?” He scanned the area. “So what was in the bag?”

  “Nothing,” answered Corcoran. “Nothing of importance, at any rate.”

  Chen almost started in surprise.

  Downing shook his head again. “I’ll make arrangements to have Riordan’s cold cell shipped to our holding facility in—”

  “No, Rich. The Taiwanese will have to transfer Caine from their cryogenic system to ours, first. We can’t take receipt of a foreign cryocell: too likely that someone will ask an awkward question.”

  Downing nodded. “Right,” he said. “I’ll set up the exchange paperwork now.” He moved off to send the necessary orders.

  When Downing was well out of earshot, Corcoran looked down at the
cold cell again and spoke to Chen in a very low tone. “Because your cryogenic technology is so different from ours, I imagine Mr. Riordan will experience a difficult reanimation.”

  “Oh no, Admiral,” Chen corrected in a voice that was both deferential and enthusiastic. “This cryocell utilizes Taiwan’s improved pre-toxification system. It is vastly superior to our current models. Memory loss has been reduced to the same level as your ‘slow freeze’ technology. Indeed, recent studies—”

  Corcoran looked up from the cold cell, his eyes unblinking and direct. “I said, Mr. Chen, that this will be a difficult reanimation. In fact, it will be very difficult, and I’m sure the memory loss will be even worse than with your older models.” Corcoran still did not blink. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Chen had come to the conclusion that Western commanders were not particularly good at fixing underlings with stern, even terrifying, stares. Now, looking into Nolan Corcoran’s blue eyes, he suddenly found himself revising his opinion. “Y-yes, Admiral. Mr. Riordan’s reanimation will be most difficult. Singularly difficult.”

  But Corcoran was staring down at the cryocell again. The look on his face puzzled Chen: was it guilt, regret, resolve—or all three?

  Chen turned to his security detachment. “Flag Mr. Riordan for ‘augmented’ reanimation prior to transfer back to the US authorities.”

  “What kind of augmentation?” asked his adjutant, already scribbling busily on his datapad.

  “Short term memory suppression. Chemical and electroconvulsive.”

  “How intensive?”

  Chen fixed his underling with a baleful stare of his own. “Do you really have to ask?”

  Part One

  Approaching heliopause, Junction system (Lacaille 8760)

  March–April, 2118

  Chapter One

  ODYSSEUS

  Caine Riordan felt himself floating back up to awareness through fragments of many dreams. It seemed as though, in the midst of this waking, he had eaten, gone back to sleep, had conversations, other dreams, more meals, then finally…

  Awake. But why was he already sitting, and why was he ringed by spotlights? Where—?

  A voice—speaking in an English accent—asked: “Are the lights too bright? I can dim them, if you wish.”

  Caine nodded, squinted, seeking the source of the voice.

  “What is the last thing you remember?”

  Odd question. Caine thought back: he was on the lunar suborbital ferry to Perry City—and then nothing. As though someone had snipped a filmstrip in the middle of a scene. First he was there, and then he was here. And between the two—nothing.

  Abruptly, Caine no longer saw the still-blinding lights: finding no memories to fill that blank space, his awareness exploded inward, like a multitude of rushing hands, scrabbling in a dark closet. But instead of touching something tangible, they only encountered more yawning darkness, into which he was falling, falling, falling…

  Caine felt a cool hand on his shoulder and suddenly he was seeing again, looking into dark brown eyes in a thin face, skin the color of seared wheat. Male, early middle-aged but lean, and seamed enough to look older, brown hair receding from either side of a widow’s peak. The eyes were patient, concerned. “Steady now. Tell me: what do you remember?”

  “I remember heading to Perry City. But after that—” Caine felt a snap-frost of panic coat his body. “What the hell has happened to me? Have I been in an accident?”

  Downing retrieved a folder from a black, wire-frame table that Caine only now distinguished against the darkness. “You were taken into—let’s call it protective custody.”

  “Protective custody? Why? And what kind of protective custody would cause me to black out, or—” Or lose my muscle tone, Caine suddenly realized, seeing his wrists and arms for the first time: my God, I must have lost five kilos. More. How long have I—?

  Long-face-brown-eyes nodded at Caine’s sudden fixation with his limbs. “In your case, Mr. Riordan, protective custody meant being placed in cryogenic suspension.”

  Terror pulsed from the rear of Caine’s skull, across his back, and out into his arms and legs. “How long have I been in cold sleep?”

  The crow’s feet bracketing the dark brown eyes bunched in a wince. “Thirteen years: it is now 2118.”

  Caine felt a trembling in his limbs, was unsure whether it was a muscular spasm, or a fear reaction. Thirteen years slept away. It felt like a surreal reversal of learning that you had only a dozen years or so left to live. This way, it was not he who was going to die sooner than expected, it was everyone else. There was also a sharp, sudden fear of personal obsolescence: will I even have a place in this world?

  Caine shook off that doubt, willed himself not to shudder again, wasn’t entirely successful. “Why was I cryogenically suspended? That’s a risky process—or it was thirteen years ago.”

  “By comparison to today, yes. But the risk to you was a great deal less serious than the threat you posed to us.”

  “I posed a threat to you?”

  “Your investigations for the Independent Interplanetary News Network jeopardized crucial national interests.”

  That’s right: I was on my way to Luna to conduct research. Aloud: “And so you decided to ‘sedate’ me before I could step off the shuttle?”

  “Oh, no. You debarked safely on Luna and were quite active for just under one hundred hours.”

  “Then why don’t I remember any of those one hundred hours?”

  Mr. Long-face-brown-eyes tilted his head apologetically. “Side effect of the cold sleep, I’m afraid.”

  “Hold on. Cold sleep only disrupts memories that haven’t been fixed in the brain by a natural sleep cycle. So at most, I should have lost twenty-four hours. But I’ve lost more than four days. What caused the extra memory loss? And what happened during that time?”

  “I wish I knew, but my superiors didn’t share that information with me. I’ll look into it when I get access to the full records, back on Earth.”

  But for now, how utterly convenient for you. With no memories of those one hundred crucial hours, Caine had no way of knowing if Long-face-brown-eyes was telling the truth or not. So did I give them grounds to put me on ice? Or is that just a shrewd lie, an attempt to make me feel responsible for my own condition? A hot wave of resentment shriveled Caine’s uncertainties: either way, he was the one who had lost thirteen years, not his captors. “And you are?”

  Caine was gratified to see the other man blink, but Long-face-brown-eyes recovered quickly: “I am Richard Downing.”

  “And who do you work for? Why are you here?”

  “I handle special projects for the government.”

  “Which government? That accent doesn’t come from Mobile, Maine, or the Midwest.”

  “Quite right, but I do work for the American government, and I’m here to help you get reoriented. And to prepare you.”

  Caine didn’t like the sound of that. “Prepare me for what?”

  “Let’s just say I’m here to prepare you to investigate the biggest story of your life.”

  “Then you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m a writer, not a reporter.”

  Downing shrugged. “That’s not how it appeared to us when you came to Perry with your IINN credentials.”

  “Look: that was a one-time deal so I could get to the Moon and finish my research on lunar budget cover-ups. IINN read about my suspicions in Time, asked me to write an exclusive feature on whatever I found—and I could hardly say ‘no’ to top rates and all expenses paid. Hell, I just wish I could remember what I found.”

  Downing smiled. “You found that the visible Commonwealth development on Luna barely accounted for half of the new expenditures.”

  “I already knew that. My guess was that a lot of government craft weren’t actually completing their listed Luna-Earth runs—”

  “But, instead, were going from Tycho up to Perry City at the north pole, and then to the Far Side.” Downing nodded. “And
when we tried to fob you off with the ‘ice-teroid’ mining story, you wouldn’t have any of it. You did a little walk-about on your own—broke a few access and safety laws doing so—and found that there was no Far Side water supply courtesy of an eons-old comet impact.”

  “So it was a cover-up for some other operation.”

  “Yes. As you also guessed, we were manufacturing and storing antimatter, using the twenty-four/seven solar power available at Perry.”

  “So once I got some solid evidence, you cryoed me: surest way of keeping me silent.”

  “Logical, but no; we approached you and explained the situation. And you agreed to sit on the story.”

  “Then why the hell did you coldcell me?”

  “You were not put in suspension by us, but by security operatives that were—well, ‘loaned’ to us. They saw you preparing to enter my superior’s suite, surmised that you had lied when you agreed not to file your story with IINN, and were instead trying to steal evidentiary documents. They stunned you, tried to contact us directly, couldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  Downing sighed. “Security blackout; we were on the Far Side. Only communiqués of national urgency.”

  “So they didn’t know what to do with me.”

  “Well, we learned later that some wanted to kill you.”

  “Kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ sakes—kill me over an antimatter plant?”

  “No. Over what it was built to enable, which you had started hypothesizing shortly after your arrival.”