“Cap, do I go?” Min asked. Her human body lay in the pilot’s chair, with Mala in her lap.
“Not yet,” Pink answered from behind Eva. “We don’t know the situation outside. The fire is probably worse than the frying pan right now.”
“Give it sixty and see how many fighters are left in here. If the place empties out sooner, leave right away.” Eva had a sudden thought, so she stepped into the corridor and tried to raise Vakar on comms.
“Eva, are you well?” he answered. She stifled a laugh; how did he know?
“Are you out of range already?” she asked.
She could practically smell his concern. “Out of range of what?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind. Everything is fine.” She winced at her own lie, but if he was long gone, at least he should be safe.
“Eva.”
“Sorry. The station might be . . . slightly under attack.”
Vakar paused, emitting an angry hum. “I thought those ships were suspicious, but they did not engage so I assumed they were affiliated with The Forge. I should have inspected them more carefully.”
“It’s okay, mi vida, it happens. We’ll be fine.” The whine of the ship’s engines being powered up settled into a familiar low hum.
“I will return immediately.”
“No, no, I said we’ll be fine.” Eva waved her arms even though he couldn’t see her. “Don’t come back. Get to the Gate and get to work before your bosses get even more encabronado. I’ll call you as soon as we’re clear.”
Vakar paused, but when he replied, his voice was hard. “With respect and deep affection, Eva, you are no longer my superior officer.”
“Vakar, don’t—” Before Eva could finish, Min cut in over the speakers.
“Cap, I think you’ll want to hear this,” Min said. “I pulled it out of station comms.”
Another voice replaced Min’s: Mari, her tone professional but strained, the sound of ship alarms and notifications in the background.
“—attacks appear to be from both automated defenses and enemy combatants,” Mari was saying. “Our sensors are not detecting any known markers for sentient life, but the entire planet appears to be Proarkhe in origin. There are at least seven energy signatures that match the escaped artifact and the two counterparts we recovered from—” A sickening whoosh interrupted her, loud enough to make Eva cover her ears. She knew that sound, and if her heart weren’t mechanical, it would have stopped.
“I’ve lost engines,” Mari said quietly. “I’ll continue transmitting data for as long as my instruments are functional. Any hope that we could make contact peacefully seems to be lost. We must prepare for our worst fears to be realized.” If she said anything else, Eva didn’t hear it, because someone cut the connection.
Pink was grabbing her arm before Eva knew what was happening. Her mouth was set in a firm line, her eye seeing everything in Eva’s head as if it were being broadcast on a commwall.
“No,” Pink said.
“I have to,” Eva said.
Pink’s grip on Eva’s arm tightened. “She knew the risks. She knew what might happen. You have to let her go.”
Pink was right. What was Eva going to do, fly through a huge space battle to rescue her sister from a mystery enemy on the other side of a Gate that would be closing any moment? There was hard, and then there was impossible. There was brave, and there was suicidal.
She wasn’t leaving her sister to die, she was honoring her sister’s sacrifice by choosing to live, for herself and her crew. And with any luck, someone from The Forge would be heroic and save Mari for her.
Yeah, none of that shit sounded great to her, either. She closed her eyes and prayed to the Virgin, for Mari and everyone else caught up in this mess.
“You’re sure it’s The Fridge attacking us?” Eva asked Min, opening her eyes again.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Min said. “Station security is super mad about it. What should I do?”
Eva and Pink shared a look, and Pink exhaled loudly, a half-smile baring some of her teeth.
“Merciful heavens,” Pink said. “And here I was, ready to make a run for it quietly.”
“We can make a run for it loudly instead,” Eva said. “We just have to be quick and careful.”
Pink shook her head. “Two cycles to the nearest Gate, remember? Nothing quick about that.”
Except that wasn’t true anymore, was it? “There’s a new Gate right in front of us, and it seems to work fine,” Eva told her. “We can get to that and get through in no time.”
Pink’s smile spread and her eyes twinkled with mischief. “You know, you’re not wrong. Probably safer to do that than to risk being followed, anyway.”
Eva nodded and stepped back onto the bridge. “You get all that, Min?” she asked.
“Sure thing, Cap,” Min replied. “Where should I Gate to?”
We were supposed to pick a vacation spot, Eva thought. Can’t sit around scrolling through options while we wait to get blown up. Think, think . . .
“How about Brodevis?” Sue asked, popping her head through the doorway.
“Where they record Crash Sisters?” Eva asked. She’d heard the memvids from that place were altered to make the beaches seem comfortable instead of freezing, but that could have been a rumor. It was a beautiful place, at least, or it pretended to be.
“Yes!” Min yelled. “Maybe Leroy can get us tickets to a Grand Melee!”
Pink rolled her eye but said nothing, which Eva took for consent.
“Brodevis it is,” Eva said. “Bueno, salpica. Sue, get down to engineering in case something catches fire.”
Sue frowned. “I already repaired all the—”
“Joking, Sue, but get down there anyway, in case new problems need fixing in a hurry.”
“Right, yes, got it!” Sue hesitated, then rushed in to grab Min’s hand and squeeze it before running off toward the cargo bay, trailing a trio of little yellow bots.
Eva held out her own hand to Pink, ignoring the parts of her that were still screaming about rescuing Mari. “You ready?” she asked.
“Baby, I was born ready,” Pink replied, taking the hand she was offered.
“Then let’s make like a flea and jump.” Eva grinned. “And bite.”
While the station had been towing the Gate along before, it had untethered the massive ring and moved a few light-seconds away before conducting the transit experiment, so it was no longer as nearby as it had been. The distance would have been nothing to La Sirena Negra at any other time, except now the space between was filled with people trying to kill each other.
The fighters zipped around taking shots at anything moving within range of their smaller weapons, while the destroyers and frigates lurked at the edges of the fray like bouncers doing crowd control. The larger cruisers and battlecruisers hung back even farther and used their enormous cannons to fire at the station itself. The Forge fired back in turn, laser and plasma and even kinetic weapons continuously repelled by the shields on both sides that were still active—for now. Debris was scattered throughout from the ships that had already been damaged or destroyed, inertia carrying the pieces away from the area in a slow but still dangerous ripple effect of whatever explosion or collision had done the deed.
As with any space battle, Sir Isaac Newton was the deadliest son of a bizcocho in space, and Eva was eager to avoid the long arm of his law.
“Min, get us through,” Eva said, sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge.
“You bet, Cap,” Min replied, guiding them out into the black and immediately taking a dive down along the length of the station.
The ship’s proximity alarm became a continuous background noise once they were clear, so Eva adjusted the sensitivity until it was only the occasional blip. She pulled up the weapons systems to calibrate the auto-turret, grabbing the appropriate friend-or-foe codes from Min’s logs so they wouldn’t hit any Forge ships, then setting the size and velocity parameters to avoid
wasting shots on debris. Pink was already logged into the laser cannon, so Eva took over what they called their bag of tricks—homing mines, electromagnetic decoys, and so on—then opened the tactical display and started plotting where they might best be deployed.
That shit wasn’t cheap, and even though they’d just been paid, it would be nice not to waste their profits on murder supplies.
Time dilated, as it was wont to do when Eva was focused on not dying. Min carefully guided La Sirena Negra across the combat zone, avoiding the pockets of dogfighting and drones and enemy mines that were gradually increasing in density—relatively speaking, given how big space was. The larger ships remained at the periphery, and while the Forge station was still moving thanks to inertia, its engines had apparently been shut down to redirect power to shields that were likely to start overheating any moment. Assuming Fridge hackers hadn’t managed to get past their firewalls to pull some other comemierdería with their systems.
What did The Fridge want? Eva wondered. Were they trying to destroy the station? This couldn’t be the only Forge facility, but it certainly seemed likely to be the largest and most vital, given the sheer quantity of personnel and defenses. There was probably a lot of tech they could steal, or steal back if it had come from the raid on their own base on Pupillae. Not to mention the whole Gate experiment . . .
Don’t think about Mari, Eva told herself sternly. You don’t have time. Escape now, mourn later.
Eva pulled up the fore camera display as they approached the Gate, backlit by the system’s dying binary stars. It was always a little uncomfortable to see a big hole in space, a doorway to somewhere in an entirely different part of the universe, like an impossibly realistic holovid display floating serenely in the void. At first, the only thing visible on the other side of the Gate was more space, strangely devoid of stars, but the view changed as Min altered their approach angle to avoid the mangled remains of a pair of ships.
Me cago en la hora que yo nací, Eva thought. She knew that place. She’d only had a brief glimpse of it once, from a different distance, but it had haunted her for the past six months, awake and in nightmares that left her sweaty and breathless.
It was a planet, covered entirely in the same strange metal she had seen at the ruins on Cavus, back when she and Vakar were rescuing a team of quennian scientists who had found a Proarkhe artifact. The very same artifact had been taken by The Fridge, and later turned into a giant robot, opened a portable Gate, and vanished through it.
And if Eva was right, this was where it had ended up.
“What is that?” Min yelped, pulling Eva out of her reverie.
She took a deep, cleansing breath. “That,” Eva said, “is not our problem. Reset the coordinates to Brodevis and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
The closer they got to the Gate, the more of the strange planet became visible. There was no apparent source of water, no visible atmosphere, just kilometer after kilometer of metallic material wrapping around the enormous spherical body. Patterns were formed by the ways the metal connected or overlapped, primarily concentric circles with a few gaps that revealed what might have been underground cities, and other deep, broad chasms lit by the faintest pinkish-purple glow from somewhere far below. Small ridges and indentations on the surface might have passed for topography on any more familiar terrestrial body, but were too geometrically regular to be anything but intentionally fabricated.
And, barely noticeable against the eerily starless backdrop because of the scale and distance, flashes of weapons fire and explosions streaked across the black.
“Any cycle now, Min,” Eva said, wincing at her own sharp tone.
“It’s not working,” Min said. “It won’t accept my coordinates.” La Sirena Negra slowed down and changed trajectory, avoiding another set of incoming ships while maintaining the equivalent of a holding pattern around the Gate.
Far away above the mystery planet, a ship appeared. Eva squinted at it and, in a fit of curiosity, deployed a scanning probe through the Gate. Quantum relays should get the data back to her quickly enough, but given all the unknowns currently in play, she might be wasting her time and tech for nothing. Then again, if Mari could communicate with The Forge from there, Eva’s probes should be able to as well.
The results came back within moments, and they were confusing. Some familiar elements and minerals, but a lot of errors and unknowns. The planet was reportedly about the circumference of Saturn, with two large orbiting satellites, but its mass and density and other data were unavailable. Several vessels currently moved around in there, along with an uncomfortably large amount of debris that suggested either more Forge ships had gone through than Eva expected, or Fridge ships had followed them in, or remnants of older battles were still caught in the planet’s gravity well without falling to its surface. None of these thoughts was particularly comforting.
Also, the approaching mystery ship was at least the size of a BOFA dreadnought. Which meant it was easily as big as the Forge space station, and much bigger than any of the other ships on this side of the Gate.
“Um, Min,” Eva said.
“Still not working, Cap,” Min replied, her voice rising in pitch. “It’s like someone is jamming it open? But that’s not possible!”
Lot of impossible going around this cycle, Eva thought. Qué mierda.
“Focus on keeping us in one piece,” she told Min. Then she signaled the Forge station, asking for Agent Elus or Agent Miran, hoping they were alive and available for a random call.
Agent Miran answered, his dark face grim as his eyes flicked rapidly from their ocular implants working overtime. “Captain Innocente. I presume this is important, given the circumstances.”
“I presume you know the Gate is being jammed open?” Eva asked.
“We were aware of that situation, yes,” Agent Miran said.
“And there’s a giant-ass ship getting ready to come through?”
“Indeed there is,” he replied, his tone dry as a desert. “Attempts have been made to destroy the Gate, but thus far it appears to be impervious to our light weapons, and our heavy cannons are focused on the Fridge incursion.”
Destroy it? With Mari still on the other side? Eva exhaled sharply.
“Got any other options?” Eva asked.
“I have Dr. Carter and the rest of our team working on that,” Agent Miran said. “They believe that if enough of the Gate’s power sources were removed, it would shut down, but we haven’t been able to get any of our people close enough to try. Now, with respect, I need to get back to—”
“I’m close enough,” Eva said. “Tell me what to do.”
“Cap?” Min asked behind her. “What’s going on?”
“One second, Min,” Eva said. Then, to Agent Miran, “I’m in pissing distance of this thing. How do I depower it?”
“Stand by.” Agent Miran vanished, and Eva switched to the tactical display and sent out a few tricks from the bag to hopefully keep Fridge fighters at bay while they loitered in the area.
Pink appeared suddenly, leaning over the side of Eva’s seat. “You making deals behind my back, Co-Captain?”
Eva shook her head, then shrugged. “Getting information. The Gate isn’t working right, and if someone doesn’t close it somehow . . .” She gestured at the huge ship through the hole in space, growing larger and closer by the moment.
“Woman, you haven’t learned yet to take a step back when someone asks for volunteers?” Pink sighed, but stared at the looming threat and pursed her lips.
“We could make a run for the other Gate,” Eva said. “But what happens to everyone here when that thing comes through?”
“Nothing good, I’m sure,” Pink murmured. “Is this really a first-contact scenario?”
Eva thought of the artifact robot transforming in front of her, the harsh, modulated noise that seemed to be speech, its glowing red eyes. “It might technically be second contact,” she said. “Either way, it’s definitely a complete arr
oz con mango.”
A new figure appeared in place of Agent Miran: Emle, her brown eyes wide with alarm. “Captain Innocente, I’m told you’re near the Gate?”
“Close enough for hand grenades,” Eva replied. “What would I have to do?”
Emle lifted her chin and seemed to center herself. “There are eight separate power sources, four on each side of the Gate at regular intervals. At least five of them must be deactivated in order to render the unit inoperative.”
Qué mierda. The Gate was easily ten kilometers across. Min would have to fly her from one point to the next, and every time they stopped to let Eva out, La Sirena Negra would be an easy target.
“What happens when I take out the fifth power source?” Eva asked.
“In theory, the Gate will simply shut down,” Emle replied. She seemed about to say something more, but hesitated.
“In theory?” Eva asked.
“It may destabilize the Gate and cause a chain reaction that leads to a more . . . unpleasant outcome. The same may occur if you manipulate the components incorrectly. The form of energy used by the Gates can be extremely volatile.”
Eva thought of pinkish-purple cubes prone to exploding and sighed heavily. She turned to Pink. “We going to do this?”
“Take a vote,” Pink said quietly. “We stay and help, or we make a run for the other Gate and hope we’re faster than the competition.”
Eva nodded. “Min?”
Min stroked Mala’s back as the cat purred. They were both surprisingly calm.
“I’m scared of being too slow,” Min said. “But I’m more scared of whatever that thing is being right behind us.”
The mystery ship loomed larger, closer. It hadn’t attacked yet, but if it were anything like its known counterparts, it was simply waiting for a big enough target. It would certainly find plenty to choose from on this side of the Gate, if it came through.
Prime Deceptions Page 37
