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He slid onto his own acceleration couch and accessed the tactical situation computer. The flagship was hanging a thousand kilometres off Tranquillity’s counter-rotating spaceport, with every sensor cluster and communications system extended. Some spacecraft moved around the habitat’s spaceport and outlying industrial stations, a couple of blackhawks were curving around the spindle to land on the outermost docking ledge, and three He3 cryogenic tankers were rising over the gas giant’s natural rings en route for the habitat. Apart from that, the only ships flying were squadron members. The frigates were moving smoothly into their englobing positions, forming a protective eight thousand kilometre sphere around Tranquillity, complementing the habitat’s own formidable SD platforms. His squadron’s nine voidhawks were currently deployed right around the gas giant in an attempt to probe the rings for any observation system or hidden ship. An unlikely event, but Meredith was aware of just how much was riding on the Toi-Hoi ambush. When it came to this duty, he was a firm believer in the motto: I’m paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
“Lieutenant Grese, our current situation, please?” he asked.
“One hundred per cent on-line, sir,” the squadron intelligence officer reported. “All starship traffic is shut down. Those blackhawks you can see docking are the last of the flight deploying sensor satellites looking for an energy displacement signature from the Laymil home planet. All of them have obeyed the recall order. We’re allowing personnel commuters and tugs to fly out to the industrial stations providing we’re informed of their movements in advance. Tranquillity is supplying us with a direct feed from its SD sensor network, which is extremely comprehensive out to one million kilometres. Our only problem with that is that it doesn’t appear to have any gravitonic distortion detectors.”
Meredith frowned. “That’s ridiculous, how does it detect emerging starships?”
“I’m not sure, sir. We did ask, but it just said we’re receiving the full datavise from each sensor satellite. My only explanation is that the Lord of Ruin doesn’t want us to know the habitat’s full detection capability.”
Which wasn’t something Meredith believed. Somewhat to his surprise, he’d been quite impressed by his young cousin; especially as he’d gone in to meet her with a lot of firmly held preconceptions. He’d been forced to revise most of them under her unyielding dignity and astute political grasp. One thing he was sure of, if she was deliberately imposing limits on her cooperation she wouldn’t be duplicitous about it.
“Can our own sensors compensate?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. At the moment, the voidhawks will provide us with an immediate warning of any emergence. But we’ve launched a full complement of gravitonic distortion detector satellites. They’ll provide coverage out to quarter of a million kilometres when they’re in position; that’s in about another twenty minutes, which will free the voidhawks for their next duty.”
“Good, in that case we won’t make an issue of this.”
“Sir.”
“Lieutenant Rhoecus, voidhawk status, please.”
“Yes, Admiral,” the Edenist replied. “There are definitely no ships inside any of Mirchusko’s rings. However, we cannot give any guarantees about smaller stealthed spy satellites. Two hundred and fifty ELINT satellites have been deployed so far, which gives us a high probability of detecting any transmission should there be a spy system observing the habitat. The Myoho and the Oenone are launching further ELINTs into orbit around each of Mirchusko’s moons in case there’s anything hiding on or under the surface.”
“Excellent. What about covering the rest of the system?”
“We’ve already worked out a swallow flight plan for each voidhawk which will allow them to conduct a preliminary survey in fifteen hours. It will be somewhat cursory, but if there is another ship within two AUs of Mirchusko they should find it. Clear space provides much fewer problems than a gas giant environment.”
“Several blackhawk captains offered to assist us, Admiral,” Commander Kroeber said. “I declined for now, but told them that Admiral Kolhammer may want them for the next stage.”
Meredith resisted a glance in the flagship captain’s direction. “I see. Have you ever served with Admiral Kolhammer, Mircea?”
“No, sir, I haven’t had that pleasure.”
“Well, for your information, I consider it unlikely he’d want the blackhawks along.”
“Yes, sir.”
Meredith raised his voice to address the bridge officers in general. “Well done, ladies and gentlemen. You seem to have organized this securement most efficiently. My compliments. Commander, please take the Arikara out to our englobement coordinate, in your own time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Acceleration returned to the bridge, building to a third of a gee. Meredith studied the tactical situation display, familiarising himself with the squadron’s formation. He was quietly content with the way his ships and crews were performing, especially after the trauma of Lalonde. Unlike some navy officers, Meredith didn’t regard the blackhawks as universally villainous, he liked to consider himself a more sophisticated realist than that. If they were going to be betrayed, it was likely to be by an outside agency such as a stealthed spy satellite. But even then, a starship would have to collect the information.
“Lieutenant Lowie, would it be possible to eliminate any spy system hiding in the rings by emp-ing them?”
“Sir, it would require complete saturation,” the weapons officer said. “If the Organization has hidden a satellite out there its circuitry will be hardened. The fusion explosion would have to be inside twenty kilometres to guarantee elimination. We don’t have that many bombs.”
“I see. Just an idea. Rhoecus, I’d like to keep a couple of voidhawks in orbit around Mirchusko so they can monitor starships emerging outside our own sensor range. What effect will that have on the survey?”
“Approximate increase of six hours, Admiral.”
“Damn, that’s pushing our time envelope.” He consulted the tactical situation display again, running analysis programs to calculate the most effective option.
A red dot flared into existence barely ten thousand kilometres away, surrounded by symbols: a wormhole terminus disgorging a ship. And it was nowhere near any of Tranquillity’s designated emergence zones. Another red dot appeared less than a second later. A third. A fourth. Three more.
“What the hell?”
“Not voidhawks, sir,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said. “No affinity broadcasts at all. They’re not responding to Tranquillity or squadron voidhawks, either.”
“Commander Kroeber, squadron to combat status. Rhoecus, recall the voidhawks. Can someone get me a visual identification?”
“Coming, sir,” Lieutenant Grese datavised. “Two of the intruders are close to an SD sensor satellite.”
More wormhole termini were opening. Arikara ’s thermo-dump panels and long-range sensor clusters sank back into their fuselage recesses. The warship’s acceleration increased as it sped out to its englobement coordinate.
“Got it, Admiral. Oh, Lord, definitely hostile.”
The image relayed into Meredith’s neural nanonics showed him a charcoal-grey eagle with a wingspan of nearly two hundred metres; its eyes gleamed yellow above a long chrome-silver beak. His body tensed in reflex, pushing him deeper into the acceleration couch. That was one massively evil-looking creature.
“Hellhawk, sir. Must be from Valisk.”
“Thank you, Grese. Confirm the other intruder identities, please.”
The tactical situation display showed him twenty-seven bitek starships had now emerged from their wormholes. Another fifteen termini were opening. It was only seven seconds since the first had appeared.
“All of them are hellhawks, sir; eight bird types, four bogus starships, the rest conform to standard blackhawk profile.”
“Admiral, the voidhawks have all swallowed back to Tranquillity,” Rhoecus said. “Moving out to reinforce the englobement formation.”
Meredith watched their purple vector lines slice across the tactical situation display, twisting around to reach the other squadron ships. No use, Meredith thought, no use at all. Fifty-eight hellhawks were ranged against them now, forming a loose ring around the habitat. Tactical analysis programs were giving him an extremely small probability of a successful defensive engagement, even with the squadron backed up by Tranquillity’s SD platforms. And that was reducing still further as more hellhawks continued to swallow in.
“Commander Kroeber, get those blackhawks Tranquillity was using as patrol ships out here as fast as possible.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Sir!” Grese shouted. “We’re registering more gravitonic distortions. Adamist ships, this time. Multiple emergence patterns.”
The tactical situation display showed Meredith two small constellations of red dots lighting up. The first was fifteen thousand kilometres ahead of Tranquillity, while the second trailed it by roughly the same amount. Dear God, and I thought Lalonde was bad. “Lieutenant Rhoecus.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“The Ilex and the Myoho are to disengage. They are ordered to fly to Avon immediately and warn Trafalgar what has happened here. Under no circumstances is Admiral Kolhammer to bring his task force to Mirchusko.”
“But, sir . . .”
“That was an order, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Grese, can you identify the new intruders?”
“I think so, sir. I think it’s the Organization fleet. Visual sensors show front-line warships; I’ve got frigates, some battle cruisers, several destroyers, and plenty of combat-capable commercial vehicles.”
Large sections of the tactical situation display dissolved into yellow and purple hash as electronic warfare pods spun away from the hellhawks, coming on line as soon as they were clear of the energistic effect. The voidhawks continued to supply information on emerging starships. There were now seventy hellhawks ringing Tranquillity; with a hundred and thirty Adamist ships holding station on either side of it.
Arikara ’s bridge had fallen completely silent.
“Sir,” Rhoecus said. “Ilex and Myoho have swallowed out.”
Meredith nodded. “Good.” There wasn’t a hell of a lot more he could say. “Commander Kroeber, please signal the enemy fleet. Ask them . . . Ask them what they want.”
“Aye, sir.”
The tactical situation computer datavised an alarm.
“Combat wasp launch!” Lowie shouted. “The hellhawks have fired.”
At such close range, there was nothing the electronic warfare barrage could do to hide the burst of yellow solid rocket exhausts from Meredith’s squadron. Each of the hellhawks had launched fifteen combat wasps. Spent solid rocket casings separated as the dazzling plumes of fusion fire sprang out, and they began to accelerate in towards the habitat at twenty-five gees. Over a thousand drones forming an immense noose of light which was swiftly contracting.
Tactical programs went primary in Meredith’s neural nanonics. In theory, they had the capacity to fight off this assault, which would leave them with practically zero reserves. And he had to decide now.
It was a hopeless situation, one where instinct fought against duty. But Confederation citizens were being attacked; and to a Saldana duty was instinct.
“Full defensive salvo,” Meredith ordered. “Fire.”
Combat wasps leapt out of their launch tubes in every squadron ship. Tranquillity’s SD platforms launched simultaneously. For a short while, space around the habitat’s shell ceased to be an absolute vacuum. Hot streams of energized vapour from the exhausts of four thousand combats wasps sprayed in towards Tranquillity, creating a faint iridescent nebula beset with giddy squalls of turquoise and amber ions. Jagged petals of lightning flared out from the tip of every starscraper, ripping away into the chaotically unstable vortex.
Blackhawks were rising from Tranquillity’s docking ledges, over fifty of them sliding out under heavy acceleration to join the fight. Meredith’s tactical analysis program began revising the odds. Then he saw several swallow away. In his heart he didn’t blame them.
“Message coming in, Admiral,” the communications officer reported. “Someone called Luigi Balsmao, he claims he’s the Organization fleet’s commander. He says: Surrender and join us, or die and join us.”
“What a melodramatic arsehole,” Meredith grunted. “Please advise the Lord of Ruin, it’s as much her decision as it is mine. After all, it’s her people who will suffer.”
“Oh, fuck! Sir! Another combat wasp launch. It’s the Adamist ships this time.”
Under Luigi’s command, all one hundred and eighty Organization starships fired a salvo of twenty-five combat wasps apiece. Their antimatter drives accelerated them in towards Tranquillity at forty gees.
Chapter 14
“Lieutenant Grese, our current situation, please?” he asked.
“One hundred per cent on-line, sir,” the squadron intelligence officer reported. “All starship traffic is shut down. Those blackhawks you can see docking are the last of the flight deploying sensor satellites looking for an energy displacement signature from the Laymil home planet. All of them have obeyed the recall order. We’re allowing personnel commuters and tugs to fly out to the industrial stations providing we’re informed of their movements in advance. Tranquillity is supplying us with a direct feed from its SD sensor network, which is extremely comprehensive out to one million kilometres. Our only problem with that is that it doesn’t appear to have any gravitonic distortion detectors.”
Meredith frowned. “That’s ridiculous, how does it detect emerging starships?”
“I’m not sure, sir. We did ask, but it just said we’re receiving the full datavise from each sensor satellite. My only explanation is that the Lord of Ruin doesn’t want us to know the habitat’s full detection capability.”
Which wasn’t something Meredith believed. Somewhat to his surprise, he’d been quite impressed by his young cousin; especially as he’d gone in to meet her with a lot of firmly held preconceptions. He’d been forced to revise most of them under her unyielding dignity and astute political grasp. One thing he was sure of, if she was deliberately imposing limits on her cooperation she wouldn’t be duplicitous about it.
“Can our own sensors compensate?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. At the moment, the voidhawks will provide us with an immediate warning of any emergence. But we’ve launched a full complement of gravitonic distortion detector satellites. They’ll provide coverage out to quarter of a million kilometres when they’re in position; that’s in about another twenty minutes, which will free the voidhawks for their next duty.”
“Good, in that case we won’t make an issue of this.”
“Sir.”
“Lieutenant Rhoecus, voidhawk status, please.”
“Yes, Admiral,” the Edenist replied. “There are definitely no ships inside any of Mirchusko’s rings. However, we cannot give any guarantees about smaller stealthed spy satellites. Two hundred and fifty ELINT satellites have been deployed so far, which gives us a high probability of detecting any transmission should there be a spy system observing the habitat. The Myoho and the Oenone are launching further ELINTs into orbit around each of Mirchusko’s moons in case there’s anything hiding on or under the surface.”
“Excellent. What about covering the rest of the system?”
“We’ve already worked out a swallow flight plan for each voidhawk which will allow them to conduct a preliminary survey in fifteen hours. It will be somewhat cursory, but if there is another ship within two AUs of Mirchusko they should find it. Clear space provides much fewer problems than a gas giant environment.”
“Several blackhawk captains offered to assist us, Admiral,” Commander Kroeber said. “I declined for now, but told them that Admiral Kolhammer may want them for the next stage.”
Meredith resisted a glance in the flagship captain’s direction. “I see. Have you ever served with Admiral Kolhammer, Mircea?”
“No, sir, I haven’t had that pleasure.”
“Well, for your information, I consider it unlikely he’d want the blackhawks along.”
“Yes, sir.”
Meredith raised his voice to address the bridge officers in general. “Well done, ladies and gentlemen. You seem to have organized this securement most efficiently. My compliments. Commander, please take the Arikara out to our englobement coordinate, in your own time.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Acceleration returned to the bridge, building to a third of a gee. Meredith studied the tactical situation display, familiarising himself with the squadron’s formation. He was quietly content with the way his ships and crews were performing, especially after the trauma of Lalonde. Unlike some navy officers, Meredith didn’t regard the blackhawks as universally villainous, he liked to consider himself a more sophisticated realist than that. If they were going to be betrayed, it was likely to be by an outside agency such as a stealthed spy satellite. But even then, a starship would have to collect the information.
“Lieutenant Lowie, would it be possible to eliminate any spy system hiding in the rings by emp-ing them?”
“Sir, it would require complete saturation,” the weapons officer said. “If the Organization has hidden a satellite out there its circuitry will be hardened. The fusion explosion would have to be inside twenty kilometres to guarantee elimination. We don’t have that many bombs.”
“I see. Just an idea. Rhoecus, I’d like to keep a couple of voidhawks in orbit around Mirchusko so they can monitor starships emerging outside our own sensor range. What effect will that have on the survey?”
“Approximate increase of six hours, Admiral.”
“Damn, that’s pushing our time envelope.” He consulted the tactical situation display again, running analysis programs to calculate the most effective option.
A red dot flared into existence barely ten thousand kilometres away, surrounded by symbols: a wormhole terminus disgorging a ship. And it was nowhere near any of Tranquillity’s designated emergence zones. Another red dot appeared less than a second later. A third. A fourth. Three more.
“What the hell?”
“Not voidhawks, sir,” Lieutenant Rhoecus said. “No affinity broadcasts at all. They’re not responding to Tranquillity or squadron voidhawks, either.”
“Commander Kroeber, squadron to combat status. Rhoecus, recall the voidhawks. Can someone get me a visual identification?”
“Coming, sir,” Lieutenant Grese datavised. “Two of the intruders are close to an SD sensor satellite.”
More wormhole termini were opening. Arikara ’s thermo-dump panels and long-range sensor clusters sank back into their fuselage recesses. The warship’s acceleration increased as it sped out to its englobement coordinate.
“Got it, Admiral. Oh, Lord, definitely hostile.”
The image relayed into Meredith’s neural nanonics showed him a charcoal-grey eagle with a wingspan of nearly two hundred metres; its eyes gleamed yellow above a long chrome-silver beak. His body tensed in reflex, pushing him deeper into the acceleration couch. That was one massively evil-looking creature.
“Hellhawk, sir. Must be from Valisk.”
“Thank you, Grese. Confirm the other intruder identities, please.”
The tactical situation display showed him twenty-seven bitek starships had now emerged from their wormholes. Another fifteen termini were opening. It was only seven seconds since the first had appeared.
“All of them are hellhawks, sir; eight bird types, four bogus starships, the rest conform to standard blackhawk profile.”
“Admiral, the voidhawks have all swallowed back to Tranquillity,” Rhoecus said. “Moving out to reinforce the englobement formation.”
Meredith watched their purple vector lines slice across the tactical situation display, twisting around to reach the other squadron ships. No use, Meredith thought, no use at all. Fifty-eight hellhawks were ranged against them now, forming a loose ring around the habitat. Tactical analysis programs were giving him an extremely small probability of a successful defensive engagement, even with the squadron backed up by Tranquillity’s SD platforms. And that was reducing still further as more hellhawks continued to swallow in.
“Commander Kroeber, get those blackhawks Tranquillity was using as patrol ships out here as fast as possible.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Sir!” Grese shouted. “We’re registering more gravitonic distortions. Adamist ships, this time. Multiple emergence patterns.”
The tactical situation display showed Meredith two small constellations of red dots lighting up. The first was fifteen thousand kilometres ahead of Tranquillity, while the second trailed it by roughly the same amount. Dear God, and I thought Lalonde was bad. “Lieutenant Rhoecus.”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“The Ilex and the Myoho are to disengage. They are ordered to fly to Avon immediately and warn Trafalgar what has happened here. Under no circumstances is Admiral Kolhammer to bring his task force to Mirchusko.”
“But, sir . . .”
“That was an order, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Grese, can you identify the new intruders?”
“I think so, sir. I think it’s the Organization fleet. Visual sensors show front-line warships; I’ve got frigates, some battle cruisers, several destroyers, and plenty of combat-capable commercial vehicles.”
Large sections of the tactical situation display dissolved into yellow and purple hash as electronic warfare pods spun away from the hellhawks, coming on line as soon as they were clear of the energistic effect. The voidhawks continued to supply information on emerging starships. There were now seventy hellhawks ringing Tranquillity; with a hundred and thirty Adamist ships holding station on either side of it.
Arikara ’s bridge had fallen completely silent.
“Sir,” Rhoecus said. “Ilex and Myoho have swallowed out.”
Meredith nodded. “Good.” There wasn’t a hell of a lot more he could say. “Commander Kroeber, please signal the enemy fleet. Ask them . . . Ask them what they want.”
“Aye, sir.”
The tactical situation computer datavised an alarm.
“Combat wasp launch!” Lowie shouted. “The hellhawks have fired.”
At such close range, there was nothing the electronic warfare barrage could do to hide the burst of yellow solid rocket exhausts from Meredith’s squadron. Each of the hellhawks had launched fifteen combat wasps. Spent solid rocket casings separated as the dazzling plumes of fusion fire sprang out, and they began to accelerate in towards the habitat at twenty-five gees. Over a thousand drones forming an immense noose of light which was swiftly contracting.
Tactical programs went primary in Meredith’s neural nanonics. In theory, they had the capacity to fight off this assault, which would leave them with practically zero reserves. And he had to decide now.
It was a hopeless situation, one where instinct fought against duty. But Confederation citizens were being attacked; and to a Saldana duty was instinct.
“Full defensive salvo,” Meredith ordered. “Fire.”
Combat wasps leapt out of their launch tubes in every squadron ship. Tranquillity’s SD platforms launched simultaneously. For a short while, space around the habitat’s shell ceased to be an absolute vacuum. Hot streams of energized vapour from the exhausts of four thousand combats wasps sprayed in towards Tranquillity, creating a faint iridescent nebula beset with giddy squalls of turquoise and amber ions. Jagged petals of lightning flared out from the tip of every starscraper, ripping away into the chaotically unstable vortex.
Blackhawks were rising from Tranquillity’s docking ledges, over fifty of them sliding out under heavy acceleration to join the fight. Meredith’s tactical analysis program began revising the odds. Then he saw several swallow away. In his heart he didn’t blame them.
“Message coming in, Admiral,” the communications officer reported. “Someone called Luigi Balsmao, he claims he’s the Organization fleet’s commander. He says: Surrender and join us, or die and join us.”
“What a melodramatic arsehole,” Meredith grunted. “Please advise the Lord of Ruin, it’s as much her decision as it is mine. After all, it’s her people who will suffer.”
“Oh, fuck! Sir! Another combat wasp launch. It’s the Adamist ships this time.”
Under Luigi’s command, all one hundred and eighty Organization starships fired a salvo of twenty-five combat wasps apiece. Their antimatter drives accelerated them in towards Tranquillity at forty gees.
Chapter 14
The star wasn’t important enough to have a name. The Confederation Navy’s almanac office simply listed it as DRL0755-09-BG. It was an average K-type, with a gloomy emission in the lower end of the orange spectrum. The first scoutship to explore its planets, back in 2396, took less than a fortnight to complete a survey. There were only three unremarkable inner, solid planets for it to investigate, none of which were terracompatible. Of the two outer gas giants, the one furthest from the star had an equatorial diameter of forty-three thousand kilometres, its outer cloud layer a pale green with none of the usual blustery atmospheric conditions. As worthless as the solid planets. The innermost gas giant did raise the interest of the scoutship’s crew for a short while. Its equatorial diameter was a hundred and fifty-three thousand kilometres, making it larger than Jupiter, and coloured by a multitude of ferocious storm bands. Eighteen moons orbited around it, two of which had high-pressure atmospheres of nitrogen and methane. The complex interaction of their gravity fields prohibited any major ring system from forming, but all of the larger moons shepherded substantial quantities of asteroidal rubble.
The scoutship crew thought that such abundant resources of easily accessible minerals and ores would make it an ideal location for Edenist habitats. Their line company even managed to sell the survey’s preliminary results to Jupiter. But once again, DRL0755-09-BG’s mediocrity acted against it. The gas giant was a good location for habitats, but not exceptional; without a terracompatible planet the Edenists weren’t interested. DRL0755-09-BG was ignored for the next two hundred and fifteen years, apart from intermittent visits from Confederation Navy patrol ships to check that it wasn’t being used by an antimatter production station.
As the Lady Mac ’s sensor clusters gave him a visual sweep of the penurious star system, Joshua wondered why the navy wasted its time.
He cancelled the image and looked around the bridge. Alkad Mzu was lying prone on one of the spare acceleration couches, her eyes tight shut as she absorbed the external panorama. Monica and Samuel were hovering in the background, as always. Joshua really didn’t want them on the bridge, but the agencies weren’t prepared to allow Mzu out of their sight now.
“Okay, Doc, now what?” he asked. He’d followed Mzu’s directions so that Lady Mac emerged half a million kilometres above the inner gas giant’s southern pole, near the undulating boundaries of the planet’s enormous magnetosphere. It gave them an excellent viewpoint across the entire moon system.
Alkad stirred on her couch, not opening her eyes. “Please configure the ship’s antenna to broadcast the strongest signal it can at the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand-kilometre equatorial orbital band. I will give you the code to transmit when you’re ready.”
“That was the Beezling ’s parking orbit?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sarha, get the dish ready for that, please. I think you’d better allow for a twenty-thousand-kilometre error when you designate the beam. No telling what state they were in when they got here. If they don’t respond, we’ll have to widen the sweep pattern out to the furthest moon.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“How many people left on this old warship of yours, Doc?” Joshua asked.
Alkad broke away from the image feeding into her neural nanonics. She didn’t want to. This was it, the star represented by that stupid little alphanumeric she had carried with her like a talisman for thirty years. Always expecting him to be waiting here for her; there had been a million first lines rehearsed in those decades, a million loving looks. But now she’d arrived, seen that pale amber star with her own eyes, doubt was gripping her like frostbite. Every other aspect of their desperate plan had fallen to dust thanks to fate and human fallibility. Would this part of it really be any different? A sublight voyage of two and a half light-years. What had the young captain called it? Impossible. “Nine,” she said faintly. “There should be nine of them. Is that a problem?”
“No. Lady Mac can take that many.”
“Good.”
“Have you thought what you’re going to tell them?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Jesus, Doc; their home planet has been wiped out, you can’t use the Alchemist for revenge, the dead are busy conquering the universe, and they are going to have to spend the rest of their lives locked up in Tranquillity. You’ve had thirty years to get used to the genocide, and a couple of weeks to square up to the possessed. To them it’s still good old 2581, and they’re on a navy combat mission. You think they’re going to take all this calmly?”
“Oh, Mother Mary.” Another problem, before she even knew if they’d survived.
“The dish is ready,” Sarha said.
“Thanks,” Joshua said. “Right, Doc, datavise the code into the flight computer. Then start thinking what you’re going to say. And think good, because I’m not taking Lady Mac anywhere near a ship armed with antimatter that isn’t extremely pleased to see me.”
Mzu’s code was beamed out by the Lady Macbeth in a slim fan of microwave radiation. Sarha monitored the operation as it tracked slowly around the designated orbital path. There was no immediate response—she hadn’t been expecting one. She allowed the beam another two sweeps, then shifted the focus to cover a new circle just outside the first.
It took five hours to get a response. The tension and expectation which had so dominated the bridge for the first thirty minutes had expired long ago. Ashly, Monica, and Voi were all in the galley preparing food sachets when a small artificial green star appeared in the display which the flight computer was feeding Sarha’s neural nanonics. Analysis and discrimination programs came on-line, filtering out the gas giant’s constant radio screech to concentrate on the signal. Two ancillary booms slid up out of Lady Macbeth ’s hull, unfolding wide broad-spectrum multi-element receiver meshes to complement the main communications dish.
“Somebody’s there, all right,” Sarha said. “Weak signal, but steady. Standard CAB transponder response code, but no ship registration number. They’re in an elliptical orbit, ninety-one thousand kilometres by one hundred and seventy thousand four-degree inclination. Right now they’re ninety-five thousand kilometres out from the upper atmosphere.” A strangely muffled gulp made her abandon the flight computer’s display to check the bridge.
Alkad Mzu was lying flat on her acceleration couch, with every muscle unnaturally stiff. Neural nanonics were busy censoring her body language with nerve overrides. But Sarha could see a film of liquid over her red-rimmed eyes which was growing progressively thicker. When she blinked, tiny droplets spun away across the compartment.
Joshua whistled. “Impressive, Doc. Your old crewmates have got balls, I’ll say that for them.”
“They’re alive,” Alkad cried. “Oh, Mother Mary, they’re really alive.”
“The Beezling made it here, Doc,” Joshua said, deliberately curt. “Let’s not jump to conclusions without facts. All we’ve got so far is a transponder beacon. What is supposed to happen next, does the captain come out of zero-tau?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sarha, keep monitoring the Beezling . Beaulieu, Liol, let’s get back to flight status, please. Dahybi, charge up the nodes, I want to be ready to jump clear if things turn out bad.” He started plotting a vector which would take them over to the Beezling .
Lady Mac ’s triple fusion drive came on, quickly building up to three gees. She followed a shallow arc above the gas giant, sinking towards the penumbra.
“Signal change,” Sarha announced. “Much stronger now, but it’s still an omnidirectional broadcast, they’re not focusing on us. Message coming in, AV only.”
“Okay, Doc,” Joshua said. “You’re on. Be convincing.” They were still four hundred and fifty thousand kilometres away from the Beezling , which produced an awkward time delay. Pressed back into her couch, Alkad could only move her eyes to one side, glancing up at a holoscreen which angled out of the ceiling above her. A magenta haze slowly cleared to show her the Beezling ’s bridge compartment. It looked as though some kind of salvage team had ransacked the place, consoles had been broken open to show electronic stacks with their circuit cards missing, wall panels had been removed exposing chunks of machinery which were half dismantled. To add to the disorder, every surface was dusted with grubby frost. Over the years, chunks of packaging, latch pins, small tools, items of clothing, and other shipboard debris had all stuck where they’d drifted to rest, giving the impression of inorganic chrysalides frozen in the act of metamorphosis. Awkward, angular shadows overlapped right around the compartment, completing the image of gothic anarchy. There was only one source of illumination, a slender emergency light tube carried by someone in an SII spacesuit.
“This is Captain Kyle Prager here. The flight computer reports we’ve picked up our activation trigger code. Alkad, I want this to be you. Are you receiving this? I’ve got very little left in the way of working sensors. Hell, I’ve got little in the way of anything that works anymore.”
“I’m receiving you, Kyle,” Alkad said. “And it is me, it’s Alkad. I came back for you. I promised I would.”
“Mother Mary, is that really you, Alkad? I’m getting a poor image here, you look . . . different.”
“I’m old, Kyle. Very very old now.”
“Only thirty years, unless relativity is weirder than we thought.”
“Kyle, please, is Peter there? Did he make it?”
“He’s here, he’s fine.”
“Almighty Mary. You’re sure?”
“Yes. I just checked his zero-tau pod. Six of us made it.”
“Only six? What happened?”
“We lost Tane Ogilie a couple of years ago after he went outside to work on the drive tube. It had to be repaired before we could decelerate into this orbit; there was a lot of systems decay over twenty-eight years. Trouble is, the whole antimatter unit is badly radioactive now. Not even armour could save him from receiving a lethal dose.”
“Oh, Mother Mary, I’m sorry. What about the other two?”
“Like I said, we’ve had a lot of systems decay. Zero-tau can keep you in perfect stasis, but its own components wear out. They went sometime during the voyage, we only found out when we came out to start the deceleration. Both of them suicided.”
“I see,” she said shakily.
“What happened, Alkad? You’re not in any Garissan navy uniform I remember.”
“The Omutans did it, Kyle. Just like we thought they would. The bastards went ahead and did it.”
“How bad?”
“The worst. Six planet-busters.”
Joshua cancelled his link to the communications circuit, turning to the more mundane details of the flight. Some things he just didn’t want to hear: the reaction of a man being told his home planet has died.
Lady Mac ’s sensors were slowly gathering more information on the Beezling , allowing the flight computer to refine the warship’s location beyond Sarha’s initial rough estimate. The gas giant’s violent magnetic and electromagnetic emissions were making it difficult. Even this far above the outer atmosphere space was a thick ionic soup, congested with severe energy currents which degraded sensor efficiency.
Joshua altered their flight vector several times as the new figures came in. Lady Mac was well over the nightside now, the swirl of particles around her forward fuselage glowing a faint pink as they were buffeted through the planetary magnetosphere. It played havoc with the support circuitry.
Beaulieu and Liol would datavise flurries of instructions to contain the dropouts, returning the systems to operational status. Joshua monitored Liol’s performance, unable to find fault. He’d make a good crewman. Maybe I could offer him Melvyn’s slot, except his ego would never allow him to accept. There has to be a way we can settle this.
He turned his attention back to the communications link. After the shocks he’d received, Kyle Prager was reacting badly to Mzu’s news of her deal with the agencies and Ione.
“You know I cannot hand it over to anybody else,” Prager said. “You should never have brought them here, no matter what you agreed with them.”
“What, and leave you to rot?” Alkad replied. “I couldn’t do that. Not with Peter here.”
“Why not? We planned for it. We would have destroyed the Alchemist and signalled the Confederation Navy for help. You know that. And as for this fable about the dead being alive . . .”
“Mother Mary. We can barely pick up your signal now, and I knew where to look. What sort of condition would you be in five years from now? Besides, there might not be any Confederation left in another five months, let alone five years.”
“Better that than risk others learning how to build an Alchemist.”
“Nobody is going to learn from me.”
“Of course not, but there are so many temptations for governments now the knowledge of its existence has leaked.”
“It leaked thirty years ago, and the technology is still safe. This rescue mission is designed to clear up the last loose end.”
“Alkad, you’re asking too much. I’m sorry my answer has to be no. If you try to rendezvous I will switch off the confinement chambers. We still have a quantity of antimatter left.”
“No!” Alkad yelled. “Peter’s on board.”
“Then stay away.”
“Captain Prager, this is Captain Calvert. I’d like to offer a simple solution.”
“Please do,” Prager answered.
“Shoot the Alchemist down into the gas giant. We’ll pick you up after it’s gone. Because I can assure you, I’m not going to come anywhere near the Beezling with that kind of threat hanging over me.”
“I’d like to, Captain, but it will take some time to check over the Alchemist’s carrier vehicle. Then the antimatter would have to be reloaded. And even if it still works, you might be able to intercept it.”
“That’s a very unhealthy case of paranoia you’ve got there, Captain.”
“One that has kept me alive for thirty years.”
“All right, try this. If we were possessed or simply wanted to acquire Alchemist technology we wouldn’t even have come here. We already have the doc. You’re military, you know there are a great many ways information can be extracted from unwilling donors. And we certainly wouldn’t have thrown in a crazy story like the possessed to confuse the issue. But we’re not possessed, or even hostile to you, so we told you the truth. So I’ll tell you what. If you’re still not convinced that we want to end the Alchemist threat, then go right ahead and kamikaze.”
“No!” Alkad yelled.
“Quiet, Doc. First though, Captain, you put this Peter Adul character in a spacesuit, boot him out the airlock, and let us pick him up. He cannot be allowed to die, not if he knows how to build an Alchemist. The possessed would have him then. Guarding against that technology leakage is part of your duty, too, now. Once we have him, I’ll blow you to shit myself if that’s what it takes.”
“You would, too, wouldn’t you?” Prager asked.
“Jesus, yes. After what I’ve been through chasing the doc, it’ll be a pleasure to finish this properly.”
“It may be just the lousy reception I’m getting, but you look very young, Captain Calvert.”
“Compared to most starship captains, I probably am. But I’m also the only option you have. You either die, or you come with me.”
“Kyle,” Alkad pleaded. “For Mary’s sake!”
“Very well. Captain Calvert, you can rendezvous with the Beezling and take my crew off. After that the Beezling will be scuttled with the Alchemist on board.”
Joshua heard someone on the bridge let out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Christ, what an ungrateful bastard,” Liol complained. “Just make sure you invoice him a huge rescue bill, Josh.”
“Well that finally settles that question,” Ashly chuckled. “You’re definitely a Calvert, Liol.”
The Beezling was in a sorry state. That became increasingly apparent on Lady Mac ’s final approach phase, when they were rising up behind it from a slightly lower orbit. Both ships were deep inside the penumbra now, although the gigantic orange and white crescent they were fleeing from still cast a glorious coronal glow across them. It was enough for Lady Mac ’s visual sensors to provide a detailed image while they were still ten kilometres away.
Almost the entire lower quarter of the warship’s fuselage plates were missing, with only a simple silver petal pattern left surrounding the drive tubes. The hexagonal stress structure was clearly visible, fencing in black and tarnished chrome segments of machinery. Some units were obviously foreign, jutting up through the centre of the hexagons where they’d been hurriedly inserted to complement or enhance original components. From the midsection forward, the fuselage was relatively intact. There was very little protective foam remaining, just a few dabs of blackened cinderlike flakes. Long silvery scars etched across the dark monobonded silicon told the story of multiple particle impacts. There were hundreds of small craters where the fuselage’s molecular-binding generators had suffered localized overloads. Punctures whose vapour and shrapnel had been absorbed by whatever module or tank was directly underneath. None of the delicate sensor clusters had survived. Only two thermo-dump panels were extended, and they were badly battered; one had a large chunk missing, as if something had taken a bite out of it.
“I’m registering a strong magnetic emission,” Beaulieu said as they closed the last kilometre. “But the ship’s thermal and electrical activity is minimal. Apart from an auxiliary fusion generator and three confinement chambers the Beezling is basically inert.”
“No thruster activity, either,” said Liol. “They’ve picked up a tumble. One rotation every eight minutes nineteen seconds.”
Joshua checked the radar return, computing a vector around the crippled old ship so he could reach its airlock. “I can dock and stabilize you,” he datavised to Captain Prager.
“Not much point,” Prager replied. “Our airlock chamber was breached by particle impact; and I doubt the latches will work anyway. If you just hold station we’ll transfer across in suits.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Captain,” Beaulieu said. “Two fusion drives. They’re on an approach vector.”
“Jesus!” He accessed the sensors. Half of the image was a ghostly apricot-coloured ocean illuminated by the planetary-sized aurora borealis storms which floated serenely above it. The nighttime sky which vaulted it was a perfect orrery dome of stars where the only movement came from tiny moons racing along their ordained pathways. Red icons were bracketing two of the brighter stars just outside the ecliptic. When Joshua keyed in the infrared they became brilliant. Purple vector lines sprouted out of them, projecting their trajectory in towards him.
“Approximately two hundred thousand kilometres away,” Beaulieu said, her synthesized voice sounding completely uncaring. “I think I can confirm the drive signatures; it appears to be our old friends the Urschel and the Raimo . Both plasma exhausts have very similar instabilities. If not them, then there are certainly possessed on board.”
“Who else?” Ashly grunted morosely.
Alkad looked around frantically, trying to make eye contact with the crew. They were all looking at Joshua as he lay on his couch, eyes closed, his flat brow producing neat parallel furrows as he frowned in concentration. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Take the survivors on board and run. Those ships are too far away to threaten us.”
Sarha waved her hand in annoyance. “They are now,” she said in a low voice. “They won’t be for long. And we’re too close to the gas giant to jump out. We need to be another hundred and thirty thousand kilometres away. In other words, up where they are. That means we can’t boost straight up; we’d fly straight into them.”
“So . . . what then?”
Sarha pointed a finger at Joshua. “He’ll tell us. If there’s a vector out of here, Joshua will find it.”
Alkad was surprised by the amount of respect in the normally volatile crew woman. But then all of the crew were regarding their captain with the kind of hushed expectancy that was usually the province of holy gurus. It made Alkad very uneasy.
Joshua’s eyes flipped open. “We have a problem,” he announced grimly. “Their altitude gives them too much tactical advantage. I can’t find us a vector.” A small regretful dip at the corner of his mouth. “There isn’t even a convenient Lagrange point this time. And I wouldn’t like to risk it anyway, not while we’re so close to a gas giant as big as this one.”
“Fly a slingshot,” Liol said. “Dive straight at the gas giant and go for a jump on the other side.”
“That’s over three hundred thousand kilometres away. Lady Mac can probably accelerate harder than the Organization ships, but they’ve got antimatter combat wasps, remember. Forty-five-gee acceleration; we’d never make it.”
“Christ.”
“Beaulieu, put a com beam on them,” Joshua said. “If they respond, ask them what they want. I’m sure we know, but if nothing else I’d like confirmation.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Doc, how do we go about firing the Alchemist at them?”
“You can’t,” she said simply.
“Jesus, Doc, this is no time for principles. Don’t you understand? We have no other way out. None. That weapon is the only advantage we’ve got left. If we don’t kill them, they’ll get you, and Peter.”
“This is not a question of principle, Captain. It’s not physically possible to deploy the Alchemist against starships.”
“Jesus.” He couldn’t believe it. But the doc looked frightened enough. Intuition convinced him she was telling the truth. The navigation program was still producing flight vectors. Dumb forced-calculation, trying out every conceivable probability to find one which would let them escape. The plots flickered in and out of existence at a subliminal speed, miniature purple lightning bolts crackling around the inside of his head. Throw in wild card manoeuvres, lunar slingshots, Lagrange points. Pray! It didn’t make the slightest difference. The Organization frigates had thoroughly outmanoeuvred him. His one hope had been the Alchemist, a super-doomsday machine, a nuke to kill a couple of ants.
I have come so far I can actually see the ship it’s stored in. I can’t lose now, not with these stakes.
“Okay, Doc, I want to know exactly what your Alchemist does, and how it does it.” He clicked his fingers at Monica and Samuel. “You two, I’ll stay in Tranquillity if we survive this, but I have to know.”
“God, Calvert, I’ll stay there with you if that’s what it takes,” Monica told him. “Just get us out of this.”
“Joshua,” Sarha said. “You can’t.”
“Give me an alternative. It gets Liol’s vote. He’ll be captain then.”
“I’m crew, Josh. This is your ship.”
“Now he tells me. Datavise the file, Doc. Now, please.” Information leapt into his mind as the files came over. Theory, application, construction, deployment, operational parameters. All neatly indexed with helpful cross-referencing. The blueprints of how to slay a star; in fact, build enough and you could slay an entire galaxy; or even just . . . Joshua flicked instantaneously back to the operational aspects. Pumped a few figures of his own into Mzu’s coldly simple equations.
“Jesus, Doc, it wasn’t a rumour. You really are dangerous, aren’t you?”
“Can you do it?” Monica asked. She wanted to shout the question at him, jolt him out of that infuriating complacency.
Joshua winked at her. “Absolutely. Look, we came off badly down in that ironberg yard because that’s not my territory. This is. In space, we win.”
“Is he serious?” Monica appealed to the rest of the bridge.
“Oh, yes,” Sarha said. “If anyone gets hostile with Lady Mac , they just crash straight into his ego.”
High York posed a difficult problem of interpretation for Louise. The AV pillar in the Jamrana ’s lounge shone its image down her optic nerve throughout the entire approach phase. There was no colour, space was so black she couldn’t even see the stars. The asteroid was different to Phobos’s chiselled cylinder, a grizzled irregular lump which the ship’s sensors seemed incapable of bringing into proper focus. Mechanical artefacts were shunting out of its puckered surface at all angles, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had the scale right. If she had, then they were bigger than the largest ship ever to ply Norfolk’s seas.
Fletcher was in the lounge with her. From the few comments he made he understood even less of the image than she did.
Genevieve, of course, was in her tiny cabin playing games on her processor block. She’d found a soul mate in one of Pieri’s younger cousins; the pair of them had taken to locking themselves away for hours at a time to tackle battalions of Trafalgar Greenjackets or skate through puzzles of five-dimensional topology. Louise wasn’t entirely happy with her sister’s new hobby, but on the other hand she was grateful she didn’t have the duty of keeping her amused during the flight.
High York’s disk-shaped spaceport traversed the AV image, eclipsing the asteroid itself. A high-pitched whine vibrated out of the lounge walls, and the Jamrana drifted forwards. And still there was no glimpse of Earth. Louise had really been looking forwards to that. Pieri would align a sensor on the planet for her if she asked, she was sure; but right now the whole Bushay family was involved in the docking procedure.
Louise asked her processor block for an update on their approach, and studied the display which appeared on its screen while it accessed the ship’s flight computer. “Four minutes until we dock,” she said. Assuming she was reading the tables of figures and coloured lines correctly.
She’d spent a large portion of the flight working through the block’s tutorial programs until she could manage the unit’s more basic display and operation modes. She didn’t need to ask anyone’s help to manage her medical nanonic packages, and she could monitor the baby’s health continually. It gave her a good feeling. So much of Confederation life was centred around the casual use of electronics.
“Why so nervous, my lady?” Fletcher asked. “Our voyage ends. With Our Lord’s mercy we have prevailed once more against the most inopportune circumstances. We have returned to the good Earth, the cradle of humanity. Though I fear that which has befallen me, I can do naught but rejoice at our homecoming.”
“I’m not nervous,” she protested unconvincingly.
“Come now, lady.”
“All right. Look, it’s not getting here; I’m really delighted we’ve made it. I suppose it’s silly of me, but something about being on Earth is very reassuring. It’s old and it’s very strong, and if people are going to be safe anywhere, then it’ll be here. That’s the problem. Something Endron said about it keeps bothering me.”
“You know that if I can assist you, I will.”
“No. It’s nothing you can help with. That’s the point. Endron told me we wouldn’t get through High York’s spaceport; that there would be inspections and examinations, awfully strict ones. It’ll be nothing like arriving at Phobos. And everything I’ve heard from Pieri just confirms that. I’m sorry, Fletcher, I don’t think we’re going to make it, I really don’t.”
“And yet we must,” he said softly. “That fiend Dexter cannot prevail. Should the necessity become apparent, I will surrender myself and warn Earth’s rulers.”
“Oh, no, Fletcher, you can’t do that. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Yet still you doubt me, Lady Louise. I see your heart crying in pain. That is a source of grief for me.”
“I don’t doubt you, Fletcher. It’s just that . . . If we can’t get through, then Quinn Dexter won’t manage it either. That would mean your whole journey is for nothing. I hate that.”
“Dexter is stronger than I, lady. I hold that bitter memory quite plainly. He is also more cunning and ruthless. If there is but a single chink in the armour of Earth’s valiant harbourmasters he will find it.”
“Heavens, I hope not. Quinn Dexter loose on Earth is too horrible to think about.”
“Aye, my lady.” His fingers clasped hers to emphasise his determination. Something he rarely did, shying away from physical contact with people. It was almost as if he feared contamination.
“That is why you must swear faithfully to me that should I stumble in my task you must pick up the torch and carry on. The world must be warned of Quinn Dexter’s devilish intent. And if possible you must also seek out this Banneth of whom he spoke with such animosity. Alert her to his presence, emphasise the danger she will face.”
“I’ll try, Fletcher, really I will. I promise.” Fletcher was prepared to sacrifice his new life and eternal sanity to save others. Her own goal of reaching Joshua seemed so petty and selfish in comparison. “Be careful when we disembark,” she urged.
“I place my trust in God, my lady. And if they catch me—”
“They won’t!”
“Ah, now who has adopted a frail bravado? As I recall, ’twas you who warned me of what lies crouched beside the road ahead.”
“I know.”
“Forgive me, lady. I see that once again my tact is left wanting.”
“Don’t worry about me, Fletcher. I’m not the one they’ll put into zero-tau.”
“Aye, lady, I confess that prospect is one I shrink from. I know in my heart I will not last long in such black confinement.”
“I’ll get you out,” she vowed. “If they put you in zero-tau I’ll get it switched off, or something. There will be lawyers I can hire.” She patted her ship-suit’s breast pocket, feeling the outline of the Jovian Bank credit disk. “I have money.”
The scoutship crew thought that such abundant resources of easily accessible minerals and ores would make it an ideal location for Edenist habitats. Their line company even managed to sell the survey’s preliminary results to Jupiter. But once again, DRL0755-09-BG’s mediocrity acted against it. The gas giant was a good location for habitats, but not exceptional; without a terracompatible planet the Edenists weren’t interested. DRL0755-09-BG was ignored for the next two hundred and fifteen years, apart from intermittent visits from Confederation Navy patrol ships to check that it wasn’t being used by an antimatter production station.
As the Lady Mac ’s sensor clusters gave him a visual sweep of the penurious star system, Joshua wondered why the navy wasted its time.
He cancelled the image and looked around the bridge. Alkad Mzu was lying prone on one of the spare acceleration couches, her eyes tight shut as she absorbed the external panorama. Monica and Samuel were hovering in the background, as always. Joshua really didn’t want them on the bridge, but the agencies weren’t prepared to allow Mzu out of their sight now.
“Okay, Doc, now what?” he asked. He’d followed Mzu’s directions so that Lady Mac emerged half a million kilometres above the inner gas giant’s southern pole, near the undulating boundaries of the planet’s enormous magnetosphere. It gave them an excellent viewpoint across the entire moon system.
Alkad stirred on her couch, not opening her eyes. “Please configure the ship’s antenna to broadcast the strongest signal it can at the one-hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand-kilometre equatorial orbital band. I will give you the code to transmit when you’re ready.”
“That was the Beezling ’s parking orbit?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sarha, get the dish ready for that, please. I think you’d better allow for a twenty-thousand-kilometre error when you designate the beam. No telling what state they were in when they got here. If they don’t respond, we’ll have to widen the sweep pattern out to the furthest moon.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“How many people left on this old warship of yours, Doc?” Joshua asked.
Alkad broke away from the image feeding into her neural nanonics. She didn’t want to. This was it, the star represented by that stupid little alphanumeric she had carried with her like a talisman for thirty years. Always expecting him to be waiting here for her; there had been a million first lines rehearsed in those decades, a million loving looks. But now she’d arrived, seen that pale amber star with her own eyes, doubt was gripping her like frostbite. Every other aspect of their desperate plan had fallen to dust thanks to fate and human fallibility. Would this part of it really be any different? A sublight voyage of two and a half light-years. What had the young captain called it? Impossible. “Nine,” she said faintly. “There should be nine of them. Is that a problem?”
“No. Lady Mac can take that many.”
“Good.”
“Have you thought what you’re going to tell them?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Jesus, Doc; their home planet has been wiped out, you can’t use the Alchemist for revenge, the dead are busy conquering the universe, and they are going to have to spend the rest of their lives locked up in Tranquillity. You’ve had thirty years to get used to the genocide, and a couple of weeks to square up to the possessed. To them it’s still good old 2581, and they’re on a navy combat mission. You think they’re going to take all this calmly?”
“Oh, Mother Mary.” Another problem, before she even knew if they’d survived.
“The dish is ready,” Sarha said.
“Thanks,” Joshua said. “Right, Doc, datavise the code into the flight computer. Then start thinking what you’re going to say. And think good, because I’m not taking Lady Mac anywhere near a ship armed with antimatter that isn’t extremely pleased to see me.”
Mzu’s code was beamed out by the Lady Macbeth in a slim fan of microwave radiation. Sarha monitored the operation as it tracked slowly around the designated orbital path. There was no immediate response—she hadn’t been expecting one. She allowed the beam another two sweeps, then shifted the focus to cover a new circle just outside the first.
It took five hours to get a response. The tension and expectation which had so dominated the bridge for the first thirty minutes had expired long ago. Ashly, Monica, and Voi were all in the galley preparing food sachets when a small artificial green star appeared in the display which the flight computer was feeding Sarha’s neural nanonics. Analysis and discrimination programs came on-line, filtering out the gas giant’s constant radio screech to concentrate on the signal. Two ancillary booms slid up out of Lady Macbeth ’s hull, unfolding wide broad-spectrum multi-element receiver meshes to complement the main communications dish.
“Somebody’s there, all right,” Sarha said. “Weak signal, but steady. Standard CAB transponder response code, but no ship registration number. They’re in an elliptical orbit, ninety-one thousand kilometres by one hundred and seventy thousand four-degree inclination. Right now they’re ninety-five thousand kilometres out from the upper atmosphere.” A strangely muffled gulp made her abandon the flight computer’s display to check the bridge.
Alkad Mzu was lying flat on her acceleration couch, with every muscle unnaturally stiff. Neural nanonics were busy censoring her body language with nerve overrides. But Sarha could see a film of liquid over her red-rimmed eyes which was growing progressively thicker. When she blinked, tiny droplets spun away across the compartment.
Joshua whistled. “Impressive, Doc. Your old crewmates have got balls, I’ll say that for them.”
“They’re alive,” Alkad cried. “Oh, Mother Mary, they’re really alive.”
“The Beezling made it here, Doc,” Joshua said, deliberately curt. “Let’s not jump to conclusions without facts. All we’ve got so far is a transponder beacon. What is supposed to happen next, does the captain come out of zero-tau?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sarha, keep monitoring the Beezling . Beaulieu, Liol, let’s get back to flight status, please. Dahybi, charge up the nodes, I want to be ready to jump clear if things turn out bad.” He started plotting a vector which would take them over to the Beezling .
Lady Mac ’s triple fusion drive came on, quickly building up to three gees. She followed a shallow arc above the gas giant, sinking towards the penumbra.
“Signal change,” Sarha announced. “Much stronger now, but it’s still an omnidirectional broadcast, they’re not focusing on us. Message coming in, AV only.”
“Okay, Doc,” Joshua said. “You’re on. Be convincing.” They were still four hundred and fifty thousand kilometres away from the Beezling , which produced an awkward time delay. Pressed back into her couch, Alkad could only move her eyes to one side, glancing up at a holoscreen which angled out of the ceiling above her. A magenta haze slowly cleared to show her the Beezling ’s bridge compartment. It looked as though some kind of salvage team had ransacked the place, consoles had been broken open to show electronic stacks with their circuit cards missing, wall panels had been removed exposing chunks of machinery which were half dismantled. To add to the disorder, every surface was dusted with grubby frost. Over the years, chunks of packaging, latch pins, small tools, items of clothing, and other shipboard debris had all stuck where they’d drifted to rest, giving the impression of inorganic chrysalides frozen in the act of metamorphosis. Awkward, angular shadows overlapped right around the compartment, completing the image of gothic anarchy. There was only one source of illumination, a slender emergency light tube carried by someone in an SII spacesuit.
“This is Captain Kyle Prager here. The flight computer reports we’ve picked up our activation trigger code. Alkad, I want this to be you. Are you receiving this? I’ve got very little left in the way of working sensors. Hell, I’ve got little in the way of anything that works anymore.”
“I’m receiving you, Kyle,” Alkad said. “And it is me, it’s Alkad. I came back for you. I promised I would.”
“Mother Mary, is that really you, Alkad? I’m getting a poor image here, you look . . . different.”
“I’m old, Kyle. Very very old now.”
“Only thirty years, unless relativity is weirder than we thought.”
“Kyle, please, is Peter there? Did he make it?”
“He’s here, he’s fine.”
“Almighty Mary. You’re sure?”
“Yes. I just checked his zero-tau pod. Six of us made it.”
“Only six? What happened?”
“We lost Tane Ogilie a couple of years ago after he went outside to work on the drive tube. It had to be repaired before we could decelerate into this orbit; there was a lot of systems decay over twenty-eight years. Trouble is, the whole antimatter unit is badly radioactive now. Not even armour could save him from receiving a lethal dose.”
“Oh, Mother Mary, I’m sorry. What about the other two?”
“Like I said, we’ve had a lot of systems decay. Zero-tau can keep you in perfect stasis, but its own components wear out. They went sometime during the voyage, we only found out when we came out to start the deceleration. Both of them suicided.”
“I see,” she said shakily.
“What happened, Alkad? You’re not in any Garissan navy uniform I remember.”
“The Omutans did it, Kyle. Just like we thought they would. The bastards went ahead and did it.”
“How bad?”
“The worst. Six planet-busters.”
Joshua cancelled his link to the communications circuit, turning to the more mundane details of the flight. Some things he just didn’t want to hear: the reaction of a man being told his home planet has died.
Lady Mac ’s sensors were slowly gathering more information on the Beezling , allowing the flight computer to refine the warship’s location beyond Sarha’s initial rough estimate. The gas giant’s violent magnetic and electromagnetic emissions were making it difficult. Even this far above the outer atmosphere space was a thick ionic soup, congested with severe energy currents which degraded sensor efficiency.
Joshua altered their flight vector several times as the new figures came in. Lady Mac was well over the nightside now, the swirl of particles around her forward fuselage glowing a faint pink as they were buffeted through the planetary magnetosphere. It played havoc with the support circuitry.
Beaulieu and Liol would datavise flurries of instructions to contain the dropouts, returning the systems to operational status. Joshua monitored Liol’s performance, unable to find fault. He’d make a good crewman. Maybe I could offer him Melvyn’s slot, except his ego would never allow him to accept. There has to be a way we can settle this.
He turned his attention back to the communications link. After the shocks he’d received, Kyle Prager was reacting badly to Mzu’s news of her deal with the agencies and Ione.
“You know I cannot hand it over to anybody else,” Prager said. “You should never have brought them here, no matter what you agreed with them.”
“What, and leave you to rot?” Alkad replied. “I couldn’t do that. Not with Peter here.”
“Why not? We planned for it. We would have destroyed the Alchemist and signalled the Confederation Navy for help. You know that. And as for this fable about the dead being alive . . .”
“Mother Mary. We can barely pick up your signal now, and I knew where to look. What sort of condition would you be in five years from now? Besides, there might not be any Confederation left in another five months, let alone five years.”
“Better that than risk others learning how to build an Alchemist.”
“Nobody is going to learn from me.”
“Of course not, but there are so many temptations for governments now the knowledge of its existence has leaked.”
“It leaked thirty years ago, and the technology is still safe. This rescue mission is designed to clear up the last loose end.”
“Alkad, you’re asking too much. I’m sorry my answer has to be no. If you try to rendezvous I will switch off the confinement chambers. We still have a quantity of antimatter left.”
“No!” Alkad yelled. “Peter’s on board.”
“Then stay away.”
“Captain Prager, this is Captain Calvert. I’d like to offer a simple solution.”
“Please do,” Prager answered.
“Shoot the Alchemist down into the gas giant. We’ll pick you up after it’s gone. Because I can assure you, I’m not going to come anywhere near the Beezling with that kind of threat hanging over me.”
“I’d like to, Captain, but it will take some time to check over the Alchemist’s carrier vehicle. Then the antimatter would have to be reloaded. And even if it still works, you might be able to intercept it.”
“That’s a very unhealthy case of paranoia you’ve got there, Captain.”
“One that has kept me alive for thirty years.”
“All right, try this. If we were possessed or simply wanted to acquire Alchemist technology we wouldn’t even have come here. We already have the doc. You’re military, you know there are a great many ways information can be extracted from unwilling donors. And we certainly wouldn’t have thrown in a crazy story like the possessed to confuse the issue. But we’re not possessed, or even hostile to you, so we told you the truth. So I’ll tell you what. If you’re still not convinced that we want to end the Alchemist threat, then go right ahead and kamikaze.”
“No!” Alkad yelled.
“Quiet, Doc. First though, Captain, you put this Peter Adul character in a spacesuit, boot him out the airlock, and let us pick him up. He cannot be allowed to die, not if he knows how to build an Alchemist. The possessed would have him then. Guarding against that technology leakage is part of your duty, too, now. Once we have him, I’ll blow you to shit myself if that’s what it takes.”
“You would, too, wouldn’t you?” Prager asked.
“Jesus, yes. After what I’ve been through chasing the doc, it’ll be a pleasure to finish this properly.”
“It may be just the lousy reception I’m getting, but you look very young, Captain Calvert.”
“Compared to most starship captains, I probably am. But I’m also the only option you have. You either die, or you come with me.”
“Kyle,” Alkad pleaded. “For Mary’s sake!”
“Very well. Captain Calvert, you can rendezvous with the Beezling and take my crew off. After that the Beezling will be scuttled with the Alchemist on board.”
Joshua heard someone on the bridge let out a heavy breath. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Christ, what an ungrateful bastard,” Liol complained. “Just make sure you invoice him a huge rescue bill, Josh.”
“Well that finally settles that question,” Ashly chuckled. “You’re definitely a Calvert, Liol.”
The Beezling was in a sorry state. That became increasingly apparent on Lady Mac ’s final approach phase, when they were rising up behind it from a slightly lower orbit. Both ships were deep inside the penumbra now, although the gigantic orange and white crescent they were fleeing from still cast a glorious coronal glow across them. It was enough for Lady Mac ’s visual sensors to provide a detailed image while they were still ten kilometres away.
Almost the entire lower quarter of the warship’s fuselage plates were missing, with only a simple silver petal pattern left surrounding the drive tubes. The hexagonal stress structure was clearly visible, fencing in black and tarnished chrome segments of machinery. Some units were obviously foreign, jutting up through the centre of the hexagons where they’d been hurriedly inserted to complement or enhance original components. From the midsection forward, the fuselage was relatively intact. There was very little protective foam remaining, just a few dabs of blackened cinderlike flakes. Long silvery scars etched across the dark monobonded silicon told the story of multiple particle impacts. There were hundreds of small craters where the fuselage’s molecular-binding generators had suffered localized overloads. Punctures whose vapour and shrapnel had been absorbed by whatever module or tank was directly underneath. None of the delicate sensor clusters had survived. Only two thermo-dump panels were extended, and they were badly battered; one had a large chunk missing, as if something had taken a bite out of it.
“I’m registering a strong magnetic emission,” Beaulieu said as they closed the last kilometre. “But the ship’s thermal and electrical activity is minimal. Apart from an auxiliary fusion generator and three confinement chambers the Beezling is basically inert.”
“No thruster activity, either,” said Liol. “They’ve picked up a tumble. One rotation every eight minutes nineteen seconds.”
Joshua checked the radar return, computing a vector around the crippled old ship so he could reach its airlock. “I can dock and stabilize you,” he datavised to Captain Prager.
“Not much point,” Prager replied. “Our airlock chamber was breached by particle impact; and I doubt the latches will work anyway. If you just hold station we’ll transfer across in suits.”
“Acknowledged.”
“Captain,” Beaulieu said. “Two fusion drives. They’re on an approach vector.”
“Jesus!” He accessed the sensors. Half of the image was a ghostly apricot-coloured ocean illuminated by the planetary-sized aurora borealis storms which floated serenely above it. The nighttime sky which vaulted it was a perfect orrery dome of stars where the only movement came from tiny moons racing along their ordained pathways. Red icons were bracketing two of the brighter stars just outside the ecliptic. When Joshua keyed in the infrared they became brilliant. Purple vector lines sprouted out of them, projecting their trajectory in towards him.
“Approximately two hundred thousand kilometres away,” Beaulieu said, her synthesized voice sounding completely uncaring. “I think I can confirm the drive signatures; it appears to be our old friends the Urschel and the Raimo . Both plasma exhausts have very similar instabilities. If not them, then there are certainly possessed on board.”
“Who else?” Ashly grunted morosely.
Alkad looked around frantically, trying to make eye contact with the crew. They were all looking at Joshua as he lay on his couch, eyes closed, his flat brow producing neat parallel furrows as he frowned in concentration. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Take the survivors on board and run. Those ships are too far away to threaten us.”
Sarha waved her hand in annoyance. “They are now,” she said in a low voice. “They won’t be for long. And we’re too close to the gas giant to jump out. We need to be another hundred and thirty thousand kilometres away. In other words, up where they are. That means we can’t boost straight up; we’d fly straight into them.”
“So . . . what then?”
Sarha pointed a finger at Joshua. “He’ll tell us. If there’s a vector out of here, Joshua will find it.”
Alkad was surprised by the amount of respect in the normally volatile crew woman. But then all of the crew were regarding their captain with the kind of hushed expectancy that was usually the province of holy gurus. It made Alkad very uneasy.
Joshua’s eyes flipped open. “We have a problem,” he announced grimly. “Their altitude gives them too much tactical advantage. I can’t find us a vector.” A small regretful dip at the corner of his mouth. “There isn’t even a convenient Lagrange point this time. And I wouldn’t like to risk it anyway, not while we’re so close to a gas giant as big as this one.”
“Fly a slingshot,” Liol said. “Dive straight at the gas giant and go for a jump on the other side.”
“That’s over three hundred thousand kilometres away. Lady Mac can probably accelerate harder than the Organization ships, but they’ve got antimatter combat wasps, remember. Forty-five-gee acceleration; we’d never make it.”
“Christ.”
“Beaulieu, put a com beam on them,” Joshua said. “If they respond, ask them what they want. I’m sure we know, but if nothing else I’d like confirmation.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Doc, how do we go about firing the Alchemist at them?”
“You can’t,” she said simply.
“Jesus, Doc, this is no time for principles. Don’t you understand? We have no other way out. None. That weapon is the only advantage we’ve got left. If we don’t kill them, they’ll get you, and Peter.”
“This is not a question of principle, Captain. It’s not physically possible to deploy the Alchemist against starships.”
“Jesus.” He couldn’t believe it. But the doc looked frightened enough. Intuition convinced him she was telling the truth. The navigation program was still producing flight vectors. Dumb forced-calculation, trying out every conceivable probability to find one which would let them escape. The plots flickered in and out of existence at a subliminal speed, miniature purple lightning bolts crackling around the inside of his head. Throw in wild card manoeuvres, lunar slingshots, Lagrange points. Pray! It didn’t make the slightest difference. The Organization frigates had thoroughly outmanoeuvred him. His one hope had been the Alchemist, a super-doomsday machine, a nuke to kill a couple of ants.
I have come so far I can actually see the ship it’s stored in. I can’t lose now, not with these stakes.
“Okay, Doc, I want to know exactly what your Alchemist does, and how it does it.” He clicked his fingers at Monica and Samuel. “You two, I’ll stay in Tranquillity if we survive this, but I have to know.”
“God, Calvert, I’ll stay there with you if that’s what it takes,” Monica told him. “Just get us out of this.”
“Joshua,” Sarha said. “You can’t.”
“Give me an alternative. It gets Liol’s vote. He’ll be captain then.”
“I’m crew, Josh. This is your ship.”
“Now he tells me. Datavise the file, Doc. Now, please.” Information leapt into his mind as the files came over. Theory, application, construction, deployment, operational parameters. All neatly indexed with helpful cross-referencing. The blueprints of how to slay a star; in fact, build enough and you could slay an entire galaxy; or even just . . . Joshua flicked instantaneously back to the operational aspects. Pumped a few figures of his own into Mzu’s coldly simple equations.
“Jesus, Doc, it wasn’t a rumour. You really are dangerous, aren’t you?”
“Can you do it?” Monica asked. She wanted to shout the question at him, jolt him out of that infuriating complacency.
Joshua winked at her. “Absolutely. Look, we came off badly down in that ironberg yard because that’s not my territory. This is. In space, we win.”
“Is he serious?” Monica appealed to the rest of the bridge.
“Oh, yes,” Sarha said. “If anyone gets hostile with Lady Mac , they just crash straight into his ego.”
High York posed a difficult problem of interpretation for Louise. The AV pillar in the Jamrana ’s lounge shone its image down her optic nerve throughout the entire approach phase. There was no colour, space was so black she couldn’t even see the stars. The asteroid was different to Phobos’s chiselled cylinder, a grizzled irregular lump which the ship’s sensors seemed incapable of bringing into proper focus. Mechanical artefacts were shunting out of its puckered surface at all angles, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had the scale right. If she had, then they were bigger than the largest ship ever to ply Norfolk’s seas.
Fletcher was in the lounge with her. From the few comments he made he understood even less of the image than she did.
Genevieve, of course, was in her tiny cabin playing games on her processor block. She’d found a soul mate in one of Pieri’s younger cousins; the pair of them had taken to locking themselves away for hours at a time to tackle battalions of Trafalgar Greenjackets or skate through puzzles of five-dimensional topology. Louise wasn’t entirely happy with her sister’s new hobby, but on the other hand she was grateful she didn’t have the duty of keeping her amused during the flight.
High York’s disk-shaped spaceport traversed the AV image, eclipsing the asteroid itself. A high-pitched whine vibrated out of the lounge walls, and the Jamrana drifted forwards. And still there was no glimpse of Earth. Louise had really been looking forwards to that. Pieri would align a sensor on the planet for her if she asked, she was sure; but right now the whole Bushay family was involved in the docking procedure.
Louise asked her processor block for an update on their approach, and studied the display which appeared on its screen while it accessed the ship’s flight computer. “Four minutes until we dock,” she said. Assuming she was reading the tables of figures and coloured lines correctly.
She’d spent a large portion of the flight working through the block’s tutorial programs until she could manage the unit’s more basic display and operation modes. She didn’t need to ask anyone’s help to manage her medical nanonic packages, and she could monitor the baby’s health continually. It gave her a good feeling. So much of Confederation life was centred around the casual use of electronics.
“Why so nervous, my lady?” Fletcher asked. “Our voyage ends. With Our Lord’s mercy we have prevailed once more against the most inopportune circumstances. We have returned to the good Earth, the cradle of humanity. Though I fear that which has befallen me, I can do naught but rejoice at our homecoming.”
“I’m not nervous,” she protested unconvincingly.
“Come now, lady.”
“All right. Look, it’s not getting here; I’m really delighted we’ve made it. I suppose it’s silly of me, but something about being on Earth is very reassuring. It’s old and it’s very strong, and if people are going to be safe anywhere, then it’ll be here. That’s the problem. Something Endron said about it keeps bothering me.”
“You know that if I can assist you, I will.”
“No. It’s nothing you can help with. That’s the point. Endron told me we wouldn’t get through High York’s spaceport; that there would be inspections and examinations, awfully strict ones. It’ll be nothing like arriving at Phobos. And everything I’ve heard from Pieri just confirms that. I’m sorry, Fletcher, I don’t think we’re going to make it, I really don’t.”
“And yet we must,” he said softly. “That fiend Dexter cannot prevail. Should the necessity become apparent, I will surrender myself and warn Earth’s rulers.”
“Oh, no, Fletcher, you can’t do that. I don’t want you to be hurt.”
“Yet still you doubt me, Lady Louise. I see your heart crying in pain. That is a source of grief for me.”
“I don’t doubt you, Fletcher. It’s just that . . . If we can’t get through, then Quinn Dexter won’t manage it either. That would mean your whole journey is for nothing. I hate that.”
“Dexter is stronger than I, lady. I hold that bitter memory quite plainly. He is also more cunning and ruthless. If there is but a single chink in the armour of Earth’s valiant harbourmasters he will find it.”
“Heavens, I hope not. Quinn Dexter loose on Earth is too horrible to think about.”
“Aye, my lady.” His fingers clasped hers to emphasise his determination. Something he rarely did, shying away from physical contact with people. It was almost as if he feared contamination.
“That is why you must swear faithfully to me that should I stumble in my task you must pick up the torch and carry on. The world must be warned of Quinn Dexter’s devilish intent. And if possible you must also seek out this Banneth of whom he spoke with such animosity. Alert her to his presence, emphasise the danger she will face.”
“I’ll try, Fletcher, really I will. I promise.” Fletcher was prepared to sacrifice his new life and eternal sanity to save others. Her own goal of reaching Joshua seemed so petty and selfish in comparison. “Be careful when we disembark,” she urged.
“I place my trust in God, my lady. And if they catch me—”
“They won’t!”
“Ah, now who has adopted a frail bravado? As I recall, ’twas you who warned me of what lies crouched beside the road ahead.”
“I know.”
“Forgive me, lady. I see that once again my tact is left wanting.”
“Don’t worry about me, Fletcher. I’m not the one they’ll put into zero-tau.”
“Aye, lady, I confess that prospect is one I shrink from. I know in my heart I will not last long in such black confinement.”
“I’ll get you out,” she vowed. “If they put you in zero-tau I’ll get it switched off, or something. There will be lawyers I can hire.” She patted her ship-suit’s breast pocket, feeling the outline of the Jovian Bank credit disk. “I have money.”