Coming back to the present, Solace saw the wide eyes, the taut faces of her squad. These young myrmidons had never faced their history before. She went among them, gently reminding them they were all soldiers together. Or had been, while there was a war. Now it was time to practise diplomacy on Lune Station.
*
They had come to the ruins of their ancestral home in the Grand Carrier Wu Zhao. Not a dedicated warship, but big enough for the Parthenon to remind every other human-descendant who had the big guns. The sight of the Wu Zhao approaching Lune Station like a vast segmented silverfish would chill more than a few spines.
Solace and her squad of half a dozen sisters wore light engagement armour – probably sufficient to take the station, if someone decided to declare war while they were aboard. Even light armour noticeably bulked out their short, compact frames. It made them look as though they’d evolved for higher gravities and crushing atmospheres.
Monitor Superior Tact had her head tilted back, angled slightly to the left – a polite shorthand indicating she was conducting a conversation over her implant. She at least had dressed for diplomacy, wearing a long grey gown of sheer, shimmering material. There was a ring of leaden discs at her neck and a circlet of similar material at her brow, guaranteed to be packed with electronic countermeasures and some kind of emergency armament. Similarly, just because Tact was a thin, stately old woman didn’t mean she wasn’t fully up for hand-to-hand combat.
‘And we have clearance for docking,’ she announced to them all. ‘Executor Solace, prêt à combattre?’
‘Pret, Mother.’ Ready for combat, ready for anything. An exchange that had so infused Partheni culture that it now covered any confirmation between superior and inferior. Child Solace had responded to her teachers the same way every morning, long before anyone put a gun in her hand.
The Wu Zhao’s gravitic fields carried their shuttle smoothly out of the carrier’s docking bay and towards the station, where Lune’s own field generator would pick them up. ‘It’s been a while,’ Tact said philosophically. ‘Last time I was on Lune Station, it was for our secession.’
‘That was on Berlenhof, wasn’t it?’ Solace said before she could stop herself; correcting superiors wasn’t a good habit.
‘The diplomatic song and dance was, later. But we formally cut ties with the Council of Human Interests right here, before an audience of about a dozen of their grandees. No surprise to anybody by then, but you could cut the fear in that room with a knife, daughter.’ Seeing her soldiers’ expressions, Tact added, ‘Yes. On both sides. Everyone thought it might mean war. And neither the Partheni nor Hugh wanted more war – especially human against human.’
‘We should empty the refugia,’ one of the escort put in bluntly. ‘Saving your authority, Mother.’
Tact’s lips pressed thinly together. ‘Ah yes, the refugia.’ Meaning a dumping ground for excess genetic variability. Meaning all of non-Parthenon humanity. ‘Nobody is to use that term while on-station, or start calling them ‘refugeniks’ or anything of the sort. Because you can be absolutely sure that Hugh knows exactly how insulting it’s intended to be. Est-ce compris?’
When the Architect had begun its cataclysmic work, Earth’s moon had been flung off into space. Nobody had even tracked where it had gone, what with all attention on humanity’s desperate attempts to evacuate. One more piece of the past lost beyond recall.
Lune Station was named in memory of that lost satellite. As they moved closer, Solace could see the hollow bowl of its central hub, its exterior transparent so all occupants could see what the Earth had become. Around the outside of the bowl spread great fans of solar collectors, communications equipment and the arms of the station’s brachator drive.
Tact interrupted her thoughts as the Wu took them in for their final approach. ‘Daughter,’ she said, ‘I trust you are fully aware of what your current role entails. You’re not just a squad-sister now, est-ce compris?’
‘Compris,’ Solace confirmed, as their craft drifted to a stop. In her heart of hearts, she would always be a squad-sister. But she’d been around for long enough to know that putting an accelerated projectile into someone wasn’t always the best way to defend the interests of the Parthenon. And unlike her younger sisters, who’d never seen the war, she’d mixed with Hivers, regular humans and aliens. They’d all been in it together against the Architects. That was why it had been hard to wake up now to find everyone so estranged.