Persepolis Rising

Chapter Fifty-One: Drummer

It was three months before the Heart of the Tempest came to the transfer station at Lagrange-5. People’s Home arrived behind it, like a servant waiting for the right moment to bow.

In those long, surreal weeks, the system had changed past all recognition. Or at least it had for Drummer. The surrender of the union ships had let the EMC fleet follow suit. There were some signs that the Tempest had suffered from the pounding it had taken—fluctuations of its heat signature, a reluctance to turn to port, the decision not to burn at more than about a fifth of a g. It didn’t matter. If Laconia was bloodied, it was unbowed. Drummer couldn’t say as much for herself.

A new armada of ships that had followed the Typhoon to Medina paused there for less than a day before they burned through the Sol gate. They were smaller ships, of a more familiar design, and fewer than a dozen of them dominated the solar system. The newsfeeds had nothing but the names of the new Laconian Protector-class destroyers—Daskell, Ackermann, Ekandjo, Smith—and their locations in the system. Where they were and where they might go.

Ganymede and Iapetus, inspired by God knew what quixotic impulse, declared that whatever the union and the EMC had said, they hadn’t surrendered. Two of the new ships had gone to each station, and the defiant announcements had ended quickly after that. The independent feeds that called out against Laconia grew fewer and more tentative. Ceres Station had a welcoming committee when the Ekanjo docked there, and pictures of the governor of Ceres shaking the hand of the Laconian captain became the iconic image of the moment. Of the capitulation. Two smiling men. The end of one age, the beginning of something new.

The ship that came to escort People’s Home was named the Stover, and by escort, they meant occupy.

By then, People’s Home had gathered back most of the citizens who’d fled before the battle. Not all, of course. Some of the evacuation ships scattered themselves out among the smaller settlements and asteroids. Got quiet in hopes that with just a dozen ships, Laconia would overlook them. Maybe it even worked. For those who came back to the void city, Captain Rowman Perkins became their new leader. He was an older Martian man with close-cut white hair and skin the color of stained oak, with a folksy Mariner Valley drawl, kind eyes, and a fire team of Marines in power armor ready to make his wishes into law. When he’d come to her office, he’d had the courtesy to sit in the chair on the opposite side of the desk while they spoke. It was a small politeness that nailed in as much as anything had how utterly defeated she was. Laconia wasn’t here to bully her or belittle her. It made no difference to Perkins whether he lost face before her. He’d come to take what he wanted—what he wanted was absolute authority—and he was going to get it. Gently was fine. Less gently was fine as well. The illusion of choice was hers.

She’d chosen.

House arrest was better than being in the brig. Her couch, her clothes, her files and access, though without any broadcast privileges and a Laconian censor looking over her data streams. She dreaded the moment when Saba reached out to her and gave himself away, but that message never came. She assumed that the detention and cooperation of the Transport Union president was useful to Perkins and Trejo and Duarte. Her confinement rooms, her escort to the gym, her meals delivered by Laconian soldiers were all part of the narrative of victory, broadcast through thirteen hundred worlds as a warning to behave well. Before Laconia even the union fell. Even Mars. Even Earth. What hope could any colony world have against them?

That was speculation, of course. Newsfeeds weren’t on her diet anymore. But she could watch old movies, listen to music, eat what she wanted, play games, sleep as much as she cared to sleep, exercise her way through all the routines she’d told herself she’d engage with if she ever had the time.

On the best days, house arrest was almost like an enforced vacation. For the first time in her adult life, she had no responsibilities. No long-term political aspirations to cultivate and attend to. No journalists or administrators or officials to spar with. The problems of who passed through which gate, of what artifacts were banned and which were taxed, of how to balance the needs of the colony worlds, all belonged to someone else now. Except for Saba’s absence, it was the life she’d imagined retiring to when her term was complete.

On the worst days, her rooms were a box of crushing depression and failure, and death would be the only release.

Her handlers dealt with all of her moods with the same equanimity and insincere kindness. They were good to her because they chose to be. If they chose otherwise, that would be up to them as well. Her opinions didn’t matter unless someone else decided that they did. And she had every reason to believe it was going to be like this—her rooms, the gym, her rooms again, under guard and cut off from humanity—for the rest of her life.

And then, three months after her surrender, the Heart of the Tempest came to the transfer station at Lagrange-5, and Drummer went with it.

Vaughn came to her like a ghost from a past life. If she’d needed any measure of how her isolation had affected her, it was how glad she was to see him. His face seemed to have cracked a few new crags down the cheeks and across his forehead. He held himself with the same formality, but instead of radiating his usual low-level contempt, he seemed fragile. Like bread that had been hollowed out inside so that all that remained was the crust.

Or maybe that was her, and she wanted to see how she felt reflected in someone else. To not be so alone with it.

He stood in her doorway while she gathered herself.

“There’s a meeting, ma’am,” he said. “Admiral Trejo asked me to … help you prepare.”

“Trejo?” she said, and it felt almost like a conversation they would have had before. “Is he here?”

“More that we’re there, but yes. The secretary-general, yourself, and Admiral Trejo. A few others. They didn’t give me the whole list, but they seem to want you presentable. And there’s this.”

He held out a hand terminal. She took it, spooled through the file trees it had access to. It was a thin list, but it had the advantage of being new. Things she hadn’t already been looking at for weeks had a certain charm. A text file with her name. She opened it.

NOTE TO THE SPEAKER: IT IS IMPORTANT THAT THE SYSTEMS OUTSIDE OF SOL NO LONGER BE REFERRED TO AS “COLONIES.” IN THIS AND ANY OFF-THE-CUFF REMARKS, THEY ARE TO BE CALLED “PLANETS” OR “SYSTEMS.” NO PRIMACY SHOULD BE AFFORDED TO EARTH, MARS, OR THE SOL SYSTEM.

QUESTIONER: MONICA STUART

QUESTION: IS THE TRANSPORT UNION COOPERATING IN THE TRANSFER OF CONTROL?

ANSWER: THE TRANSPORT UNION HAS ALWAYS BEEN A TEMPORARY STRUCTURE. BEFORE OUR LACONIAN FRIENDS ARRIVED, WE WERE ALREADY IN TALKS WITH THE UN AND THE EARTH-MARS COALITION TO DRAFT A CHARTER THAT WOULD GIVE OVER GREATER ENFORCEMENT POWERS TO A STANDING MILITARY. THE LACONIAN FLEET IS THE CLEAR CHOICE TO FILL THAT VACUUM, AND THE UNION IS PLEASED TO WORK WITH HIGH CONSUL DUARTE AND PRESIDENT FISK TO SEE THAT TRADE BETWEEN THE PLANETS (SEE NOTE) IS EFFICIENT AND FREE.

QUESTIONER: AUDEN TAMMET

QUESTION: IS THE UNION READY TO PAY REPARATIONS TO LACONIA FOR THE DAMAGE DONE TO ITS SHIPS?

“Press conference, is it?” Drummer asked.

“That appears to be part of the agenda,” Vaughn said. “You may, of course, choose to deviate from the script—”

“May I?”

“—but the Laconian censor will be reviewing everything before it goes out. And there are less pleasant accommodations than this.”

Drummer spooled through the script. Three pages of questions, all of them staged, written, and approved. “So you’re saying I should do this?”

“You gain nothing by refusing. And there is a certain dignity in living to fight another day.”

“Or just living,” Drummer said.

“Or that.”

Drummer sighed. “I suppose I should make myself presentable. How much time do I have?”

The conference room was the same one she’d been in when TSL-5 had opened for business. The vaulted ceiling seemed grander now than it had. The wait staff circulated with flutes of champagne and hors d’oeuvres—tank-grown shrimp, real cheddar, dates wrapped in bacon that had once actually been a pig. The wall screens with their views of Earth and Luna, People’s Home and the Tempest, were crisp and beautiful. High-level officials mingled and chatted as if the system of humanity hadn’t been turned on its ear. As if history were what it had always been. The absence of a few—Emily Santos-Baca, for instance—was something only she seemed to notice.

The secretary-general was in a pale suit with a collarless shirt and a golden pin in his lapel. He was smiling and shaking hands with the people around him. She’d expected him to be more somber, but in fairness, the transfer station had always been something of a humiliation for him. A place in the universe that defined the limits of his authority. Before, it had been her on the other side of that membrane. Now it was Laconia. So in a way, he’d already had more of a chance to get used to this.

The man he was laughing with, hand on his shoulder, was unmistakable. Admiral Trejo was smaller than she’d expected. Thicker about the chest and belly in a way that didn’t speak as much to muscle or fat as genetics and age. His hair was thinning, and not styled to disguise the fact. His eyes were a bright green that would have seemed affected if they’d been fake.

Trejo noticed her, broke off his conversation with the secretary-general, and trundled over toward her. He was just the slightest bit bowlegged. Drummer felt an irrational twitch of betrayal. The man who’d destroyed and humiliated her should at least have been a bronzed Adonis, not a normal human being. It would have made it easier to swallow if she’d been beaten by a god.

“President Drummer,” he said, putting out his hand. “I’m glad we could finally meet in more settled circumstances.”

“Just Drummer,” she said, and found herself shaking his hand. “I think we can dispense with the ‘president’ part.”

“Oh, I hope not,” Trejo said. “Transitions like this are delicate times. And the more profound the changes that are coming, the more important that it appear to have continuity. Don’t you think?”

“If you say so,” she said.

A waiter slid by, and she took a glass. She didn’t need the alcohol as much as the idea of it. But, Lord, she needed something.

“I’m sorry your husband couldn’t be here,” Trejo said. There was nothing in his voice that couldn’t just be a pleasantry, except that Saba’s name had been linked to the embarrassment on Medina. She’d heard that much before her detainment. She felt a thrill of fear now. Did Trejo know something? Was he about to tell her Saba had been caught? Been killed?

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I miss him very much. But we have always had different careers.”

“I hope to meet him one day,” Trejo said, and she relaxed a notch. He wasn’t dead. Trejo saw her response and smiled a soft, rueful smile. “It would be useful, I think, if you could help to resolve things with him. Chaos is bad for everyone.”

“I don’t have any way to reach him,” Drummer said. She didn’t go on with And I don’t know what I’d tell him if I did.

“Fair enough,” Trejo said. “We’ll have that conversation another time, yes? Right now, there’s something else I wanted to speak with you about. High Consul Duarte wants to convene the important people in humanity’s new endeavors on Laconia. A kind of permanent convocation of the best minds and most influential people. He’s asked me to extend an invitation to you.”

The politeness of it was foul. The pretense that she was still autonomous, the master of her own fate. Oh, she could probably refuse. Duarte seemed smart enough not to welcome people into his projects who were willing to openly oppose him. But there would be consequences. That they weren’t even spelled out made them more ominous.

“This is like the colonies, isn’t it?” she said.

Trejo lifted his eyebrows, answering her question with a wordless one of his own.

“You’re shifting everything to Laconia,” she said. “Not just ships or money. The culture.”

Trejo smiled. “Earth will always be the home from which humanity sprang, but yes. The high consul thinks that … fetishizing Earth is bad for the long-term future of the species. We will also put in place an accelerated repopulation scheme. Try to adjust the balance so that Sol system isn’t such an overwhelming majority of the population either.”

“You can’t put billions of people through the ring gates,” Drummer said. “It won’t work.”

“Not in our lifetimes,” Trejo said. “We’re talking about the work of generations. But … well, I was Martian before I was Laconian. Thinking for the long term doesn’t intimidate me.”

A woman in a white dress with gold at her throat and wrists sloped by, nodding to Trejo as she passed. He smiled back, glanced at her ass, and then back so quickly it might have passed for politeness.

“Your terraforming plan didn’t work out too well,” Drummer said more acidly than she should have. It just came out that way.

“It would have,” Trejo said, “if something bigger hadn’t come along. Anyway, please do consider the invitation. The high consul is looking forward to meeting you.”

Trejo put a hand on her arm like they were old friends and made his way back out to some other conversation on his list. All around her, the eyes and attention of the crowd followed him and left her behind. She drank her champagne in a gulp and started looking for someplace to ditch the glass so she could get another one.

“Getting drunk, Camina? You think that’s smart, or are you just past giving a fuck anymore?”

Avasarala was in her wheelchair. Her snow-white hair was pulled back in a bun, and her sari was a shimmer of green that almost hid the thinness of her body. She looked older than the last time Drummer had seen her. And she’d looked older than dirt then.

“I am taking the edge off the pain,” Drummer said. “Because what else can I do?”

Avasarala turned her chair and started off toward the podium and the seats. They were empty now, but the journalists were starting to filter in. The show would be starting soon.

“I’d join you, but they tell me I’m on my last liver these days,” Avasarala said. “No more liquor for me.”

“You seem to be taking the conquest fairly well.”

“The fuck option do I have?” Avasarala said. “I’m an old lady who spent her life trying to make peace between Earth and Mars. All this shit? It’s like I missed a day at school, and everyone else learned to speak Mandarin while I was gone. I don’t understand any of this.”

“Yeah,” Drummer said. “I can see that.”

“It’s the reward of old age,” Avasarala said. “You live long enough, and you can watch everything you worked for become irrelevant.”

“You’re not selling it,” Drummer said.

“Fuck you, then. Die young. See if I care.”

Drummer laughed. Avasarala grinned, and for a moment, they understood each other perfectly. For a moment, Drummer didn’t feel alone.

“Are you going to his orgy pit or whatever the fuck it is Duarte’s setting up?” Avasarala asked.

Across the room, Vaughn caught Drummer’s eyes and began walking toward the two women with purpose. Drummer didn’t want to go with him. Didn’t want to face the theater and falsehood of the next part. She turned back to Avasarala.

“I don’t know. I suppose I have to.”

“Always a bad idea to ditch the emperor,” Avasarala agreed. Then, “Do you know why they’re looking for Okoye?”

“Who?”

“Elvi Okoye,” Avasarala said, and Vaughn reached them.

“It’s time, ma’am,” he said.

Drummer nodded and handed him her glass. Avasarala’s claw of a hand grabbed hers, held her for a moment. “Chin up, Camina. These fuckers can smell blood. And this shit’s not over, no matter what it looks like now.”

“Thank you,” Drummer said, and pulled away.

The seats for the journalists were full now. She recognized their faces. Sometimes even the way they sat, the way they moved. She’d done this for years. She’d never done this before.

Admiral Trejo made some brief opening remarks—thanked everyone for being there, expressed bright hopes for the future, extended the greeting of High Consul Duarte—and brought her up. The others would come later. The secretary-general. The speaker of the Martian parliament. Whoever else. But she was the last president of the Transport Union. Her dignity was first for the chopping block.

She looked out over the faces and remembered a time she’d enjoyed this.

“President Drummer?” Her podium identified the woman. Monica Stuart. “Is the Transport Union cooperating in the transfer of control?”

No, it is not. No, I am not. No, we have been conquered, but we will fight to the last breath because living with someone else’s hand on our necks is intolerable, has always been intolerable, will always be intolerable. Not because of Laconia, not because of the union, not because of any of the authorities through all of history that have made rules and then dared people to break them. Because we’re human, and humans are mean, independent monkeys that reached their greatness by killing every other species of hominid that looked at us funny. We will not be controlled for long. Not even by ourselves. Any other plan is a pipe dream.

In the front row, Avasarala coughed.

Drummer smiled thinly.

“The Transport Union has always been a temporary structure,” she began.