A Pale Dawn

by Chris Kennedy

  When he found where its CIC—its combat information center, or the nerve center of a warship—should have been, he instead was confronted with an impregnable doorway and a strange computer interface. Breaching doors wasn’t his specialty, however working with computers was!

  Breaking into the computer interface proved beyond his substantial abilities. Through trial and error, he ascertained the ship was functional and only required refueling to bring vital systems back online. He used the authorization granted by Colonel Cromwell and ordered up a tanker of reaction mass. Everything came back online almost immediately. That was wonderful. Then the ship proceeded to prepare for departure from the system. That was not wonderful.

  He’d just managed to transmit to someone in New Warsaw about his predicament, including where the ship was headed, when it used its hyperspace shunts and jumped out of the New Warsaw system.

  With some time on his hands, he began working to find a way to stop the ship at its next destination. He didn’t; in fact, it looked like there was no way to stop it. The cherry on the cake was finding out the ship was actually a doomsday weapon carrying out ancient orders to destroy the capital planet of the Galactic Union.

  Colonel Cromwell had left earlier to prosecute her little war against the Mercenary Guild, which left Captain Teenge on the new Egleesius named Arion to come in pursuit. Luckily, the Aposa captain was persistent, and they’d managed to use some of the newly uplifted SalSha pilots flying Intruder bombers—which Sato, himself, had designed—to get aboard.

  Prior to their boarding, Sato managed to discover the ship was known as a Keesius. It appeared unarmed, which seemed unusual for a doomsday weapon. Then he discovered it did its evil by turning itself into an antimatter bomb. Subtle. When Lieutenant Colonel Walker boarded with his marines, though, it turned out to be anything but defenseless. It used maintenance bots and its own manufactory to throw everything it could at them.

  What followed was a multiple-week ordeal with him trying to get control of the ship from an AI. It wasn’t as sophisticated as the AI which ran Pegasus—the one Colonel Cromwell called Ghost. Yet it was still an AI, and just as stubborn and dangerous. He almost starved on several occasions, but Walker managed to get him food. They also couldn’t evacuate him, because the ship considered the marines enemies, although it didn’t consider him one. So, he’d continued trying to do what he could.

  Eventually, he’d been forced to help disable the manufactory, at which point the AI decided he was an enemy and tried to kill him. One jump out from Capital and preparing for its terror attack, the marines forced entry into the CIC where they located the AI.

  “Then they knocked me out and carried me away,” Sato said, throwing a stylus across his cabin. The throw started him spinning in freefall, and the stylus bounced around the space like a pinball. The damned Horde officer had used an EMP device to disable his specially-designed CASPer and hauled him off the Keesius like so much baggage. The marine commander, Colonel Earl, stayed behind with a SalSha pilot and forced the computer to trigger a premature explosion. It was on the order of several gigatons, from what he’d heard. Impressive.

  Sato stopped his spin and ground his teeth. Of course, he’d modify his CASPer when he got back so that wouldn’t happen again. He’d missed a golden opportunity to study the AI. Since Colonel Cromwell wouldn’t let him experiment on hers, it was a serious loss. To make matters worse, he’d been locked up in his cabin ever since.

  “Mr. Sato,” Captain Teenge had said, “I have no intention of letting you out of my sight until such time as we get back to New Warsaw and I can hand you over to Colonel Cromwell. You can cry, you can protest, and you can threaten all you want. Nothing will change my decision.” The captain was a typical Aposa—not a reasonable bone in her rodent body.

  He didn’t notice the alarm claxon sounding acceleration stations until Arion fired her fusion torches, and Sato found himself unceremoniously flung against the “floor” of his cabin, raining slates, computer chips, and empty food containers everywhere. In a rage, he used his pinplants to call the bridge.

  “Mr. Sato, we’re a little busy,” Captain Teenge said.

  “You could have had the common decency to at least warn me you were going to accelerate!”

  “Sir, we sounded acceleration stations ten seconds ago.”

  Sato cocked his head and finally noticed the repeating Whee, whee, whee, of said alarm. “Oh,” he said, “I see.”

  “Now, if you don’t mind?”

  “May I ask what is happening?”

  The captain said something in her native language the translator didn’t catch, then spoke more clearly. “The Merc Guild is attacking the star system, and we are retreating to New Warsaw.”

  “I thought Major Walker was on the planet doing some sort of nonsense.”

  “He is, and we don’t have time to recover him. We’ll be jumping as soon as we’ve cleared the planet’s gravity zone.”

  Sato had another question, but Captain Teenge decided she had other things to do and cut the connection. Not a patient bone either, Sato thought, amending his earlier assessment of the captain’s Aposa nature. Still, returning to New Warsaw was good; he’d left a great many projects unfinished there.

  Since he had gravity now, Sato sat on his hammock and used one of his several Tri-V projectors to show his current pinplant scheme. He needed to talk to Nemo about an idea. Sato had no intention of letting his next encounter with a Keesius-class AI end the same way.

  “No, not at all,” he said, examining the technical drawings.

  A short time later, they were unmade into hyperspace.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Two

  Golara Command Center, Golara System

  Sansar Enkh woke with a start, a vision of a pendant in her mind. Although the rest of the dream fled, the symbol remained burned into her vision, like an afterimage from looking at something too bright. A metal twist pendant with a pointed rattlesnake tail. A flash of light illuminated it, glinting off the symbol as it spun on a chain.

  Something indescribably awful had happened. Deaths. Thousands—maybe millions—of deaths. So much death…and it was coming for her.

  * * *

  Colonel Alexis Cromwell, commander of the Winged Hussars, looked at the data displayed on the huge conference room Tri-V and considered the implications. Young Colonel Jim Cartwright, commander of Cartwright’s Cavaliers, sat across the conference table from her. He looked tired yet excited. He should, since he was the one who’d found the data. Or rather, his little furry friend, Splunk.

  The Fae looked a bit like a monkey, only with huge intelligent eyes and doubly big expressive ears sporting tufts of fur at the end. The alien watched Alexis, just as curious about the Hussars commander, it would seem. The Fae carried a pair of dark goggles around her neck; it would seem she was sensitive to bright lights.

  “Jim,” Alexis said, “what level of confidence do you have in this data?”

  “Pretty high,” Jim said. “Splunk just about took apart the previous base commander’s offices. She found this in a hidden safe.”

  “And she just broke into the safe herself?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jim said, and the alien grinned, showing tiny sharp teeth. “She has a talent for getting into things intended to keep her out.”

  I bet, Alexis thought. She’d gotten a report before they left New Warsaw, which had referenced numerous reports of “Fae Sightings” around the system by her internal intelligence people, civilians, and operational units. When Jim somehow brought his asteroid Upsilon 4 from Karma through hyperspace, he appeared to have brought more of the aliens with him. She still wanted to know how he’d gotten the asteroid to travel through hyperspace and how he’d known the address of New Warsaw. The latter was the Hussars’ most closely guarded secret.

  “Is it possible they left this data hoping we’d find it?” she asked.

  “Wouldn’t they have to know we were coming?” Jim asked.

&nb
sp; Alexis grinned. Of course, he was correct. “Yes, they would. As you saw, Peepo wasn’t happy to find out we’d taken the base from her. I’m convinced Peepo didn’t know about this operation and thus wouldn’t have left the data for us to find.” Jim nodded. “All Four Horsemen command staffs will meet in two hours. Do you have your unit TO&E ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jim replied. “Hargrave has it up to date and we’re ready to roll.”

  “Great. I’ll see you in two hours.”

  Jim Cartwright got up with his little friend and headed out of the conference room, leaving Alexis alone with her thoughts. The target data was tantalizing in many ways. For one, it showed Peepo’s preferences, high to low. The assets she’d assigned ranged from just a single cruiser sent to the water world Valais, to a daunting fleet sent to the planet Frost.

  “So I roll the dice again,” she said in the empty room.

 

  Even that won’t keep us safe forever, she replied by simply thinking. Ghost, the Hussars long-time AI secret weapon, usually spied on her thoughts through Alexis’ pinplants. Having the AI looking over her shoulder had proved indispensable many times in her life; she’d never tried to keep it out. Lately, though, as she’d begun to realize the ancient entity operated by its own set of rules or moral codes, that decision had started to come into question.

 

  “What about it?”

 

  “Why?” she asked. Silence stretched. “Ghost, you need to trust me.”

 

  “How? From a little alien monkey which is good at picking locks?”

 

  Holy shit, she thought. What the fuck? Ghost offered no more information, and she shook her head in frustration. Too many variables were at work, and the damned AI behaving differently than it had for all her life—or all her ancestors’ lives, for that matter—was yet another variable she didn’t need bouncing around.

  “Fuck,” she cursed.

  As a bonus, she still didn’t know if the damned doomsday machine Sato unleashed had destroyed Capital, or if Teenge had succeeded in stopping it? No Hussars intelligence ships would come to Golara, so no answers were forthcoming while they were here. Plus, it looked like they weren’t going home anytime soon; there was more killing to do first. The other Horsemen were right—Earth could not be allowed to remain in Peepo’s paws.

  What about Nigel? she asked herself. A small grin cut across her features. A few hours ago, she’d either made a huge mistake or simply followed her heart. The young man was…distracting. Unbelievably handsome, and equally arrogant, Nigel Shirazi, commander of Asbaran Solutions, gave her a tingle deep down that no other man had before. Yet another variable.

  She stabbed the comms button a little too viscously and yelped when a fingernail cracked. Great.

  “Yes, Colonel?” Paka, her Veetanho second in command answered immediately. She was a few kilometers away aboard Alexis’ flagship, EMS Pegasus.

  “Move forward with the fleet dispersal plan I emailed, based on the data Jim Cartwright obtained.”

  “Yes, Colonel. We’re going to strike back?”

  “Yes,” Alexis said in reply.

  Her second in command left her with her thoughts.

  * * *

  Tunnels, Underdeep, Paradise

  “Well, it may not make sense to you,” Walker said, “but the Mercenary Guild is here.

  “What?” Colonel Ferguson asked.

  “They just transitioned into the system. They’ve got several cruisers, a bunch of other supporting ships, and three transports. Smart money says they’re not just passing through. I’m guessing they intend to pay us a visit.”

  “Wha-what do we do?”

  “Well, first, I would say to get every Camille H5 sentry gun you have up here while we go see what they have to say, then we spend the rest of our time rigging traps and upgrading your defenses.”

  “Do you think we can hold?” Colonel Ferguson asked, his eyes darting from side to side.

  “There’s never been a defense that can’t be breached,” Walker said with a shrug. “All we can do is make it as hard as possible for them. If it costs too much to get in, maybe they’ll go away.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Walker patted the side of the tunnel. “We’re surrounded by solid rock. It’ll take them a number of nukes before they get all the way down to the city.”

  “Do they have enough to do it?”

  “I’m sure they do.”

  * * *

  Golara Command Center, Golara System

  Nigel was waiting for Sansar as she came out of her meeting with Rurranach, a Sidar who had showed up unannounced at the station with Major Hector Gage, the Human in charge of the Proud Fist Mercenary Company.

  “I got a company of Lumar to subcontract for us,” Nigel said, falling into step with her. “What’d the Sidar want with you?” She didn’t say anything as she stalked off. Even though she was much shorter, she appeared to be in a hurry, and he had to lengthen his stride to catch up with her.

  She appeared to be twitching, as if laughing, but then Nigel realized she was crying as a tear leaked out of the eye closest to him. She wiped it away almost as quickly as it formed, but he’d seen it.

  “Wait,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She struggled momentarily, trying to get away, but he was far stronger than the diminutive woman.

  “What?” she finally asked, sounding angry as she turned on him. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what happened in there,” he said, his anger starting to build. “If they did something to hurt or offend you…” He let his voice trail off. The Human who was with the Sidar would be a handful in a fight, but Nigel would personally take him down if the Sidar had hurt Sansar somehow.

  “What?” she asked, sounding confused this time. “No, it…it was nothing like that. The Sidar just brought me some information that was distressing. A friend…who I didn’t even know was a friend…just died. Another victim of this senseless war, and one Peepo is going to pay for!”

  “A friend you didn’t know was a friend?” Nigel asked, his brows knitting. “Sorry, but who is this person, and why didn’t you know they were a friend?”

  “Do you remember when you rescued me from the Mercenary Guild headquarters?” Nigel nodded. “When Walker found me, down on the cell block, I was with two Tortantula. Do you remember that?”

  “Yeah, I remember them. Didn’t they join the Horde?”

  “Yes, they did, but this isn’t about them. There was a third person with me…well, not a person, per se, but a Depik.”

  “A Depik? How did you survive it?”

  Sansar chuckled, wiping another tear away as she thought back. “I survived it by not being its target, mostly. It—she—could easily have killed me whenever she wanted. But for some reason—don’t ask me why, I don’t know—she became attached to me during the trial and decided to help me. The only reason I survived long enough to still be alive when Walker got there was because she helped me. She killed a number of the Besquith and protected me until the rescue forces could get there.”

  “And now she’s dead?”

  “Not only her, but almost the entire Depik race.” Sansar’s hands went to her face, and she began sobbing.

  Nigel looked up and down the corridor and the few people he could see averted their eyes, uncomfortable with the sight of a crying woman. Lacking anything better to do, he stepped forward and drew her in, putting his arms around her to lend her his strength while she cried.

  After a couple of minutes, she got hold of herself, wiped her eyes, and gently pushed Nigel back. “Cahli—that was the name of the Depik—fled back to her home world after that. She was there when Peepo’s fleet got there, and…and…” She took a deep breath
, gathered herself, and forced herself to say: “Rurranach thinks the entire race killed itself rather than do what Peepo wanted.”

  Nigel’s jaw dropped as he processed the statement. “An entire race…”

  Sansar nodded. “Yes. Rurranach said a Hunter would rather die defiant than live as a slave. If Peepo gave them an ultimatum and no way out…”

  “They would have killed themselves. Wow,” he added. It sounded lame, even to his own ears. He wasn’t a fan of most aliens, and the galaxy was probably better off without the race of psychopathic killers, but…he had a thought. “Do you suppose what Peepo wanted was for them to kill us, and they decided to kill themselves, rather than be made to kill us?”

  Sansar stepped forward into his embrace as she began crying again. He put his arms around her again as she nodded her head and said between sobs, “Yes, I do.”

  He let her cry herself out again, then took her by the shoulders and held her at arm’s length, forcing her to look into his eyes. She was startled at the look he gave her.

  “If that is what happened,” Nigel said with steel in his voice, “then we are only alive through their sacrifice, and we owe them a blood debt that we can never fully repay. There is, however, one thing that we can—no, that we will do, and I pledge all of my honor to fulfill.”

  “What’s—” She sniffed. “What’s that?”

  “We will kill the murderous bitch, and anyone else involved, and then we will ensure that something like this is never possible again.”

  Nigel could see that his words brought resolve back to the older woman, and fire returned to her dark eyes as her back straightened, and her shoulders squared.

  “You’re right,” Sansar said. “The bitch dies. This is personal now.”

  Nigel nodded once at what he saw in her eyes. At that moment, he was very happy not to be Peepo, because she had just made an enemy that would never give up. His vendetta with the MinSha seemed like nothing more than a child’s disagreement by comparison.