by Tim C Taylor
“Indiya, do I have to worry about you?” he admonished. “I know this shuttle idea is dangerous, but I’ve clutched at slimmer chances before now, and I’m still alive. Remember that.”
“That’s true enough. Looks like the Goddess so doesn’t want you annoying her in the afterlife that she’s tilting fate in your favor as long as possible.”
“Don’t go all Littorane on me, Purple Hair. Did we get data or not?”
“A little. Our Khallene gremlins are excited. Nothing practical that will help you get through the barrier, but they are convinced the technology behind the barrier is not Hardit in origin. They say the technology signature is completely different.”
“Which tells us what? That Tawfiq’s using tech stolen from a civilization she’s captured and enslaved? If we know which one, we can find the counter. Tawfiq has just deployed mass-produced platforms inside the barrier. The vessel we captured is about the size of a small pinnace and we can’t find a coating sheath or point to any component on board that we wouldn’t expect to find. It must be a simple solution, we just don’t know what it is. Find it!”
“We’ve looked. The Jotuns, gremlins, the Night Hummers – I even made a plea to the White Knight Emperor.”
“You did what?”
“We are theoretically doing his bidding in liberating Earth.”
“I don’t want that evil, scheming veck knowing we’re in such a tight spot.”
“Arun, we beat the Emperor, but he remains powerful. If he doesn’t know our plight yet, then he soon will. Those imperial recon ships he sent after us… I’m not convinced we really did shake them off. In any case, I think I got him worried. He loathes and fears us, but that’s nothing compared to how he feels about Tawfiq. He promised to put his best tech slaves onto this but so far has provided nothing. If the gremlins are right, then maybe Tawfiq has discovered something new: a civilization we know nothing about.”
“Or uncovered something old. The Night Hummers have been secreting assets for us since the days when humans fought with spears and arrows. We sent Nhlappo back to Tranquility-4 to revive the Sleeping Legion, but who can tell what else has lain buried out of sight of the White Knights?”
Hood pinged her with a comm request, even though she’d set her node to do not interrupt. The flag-lieutenant wouldn’t intrude without good reason.
“What is it?” she snapped via thought-to-speech, while simultaneously using her voice to tell Arun to standby.
“Admiral, we’re seeing an incoming fleet bound for Earth. It’s heavily stealthed and running cold but the sensor teams insist something’s coming. It’s twelve degrees above the Ecliptic and out from the Sun at approximately the distance of Neptune’s orbit.”
“Mader Zagh. Not now! What am I saying? Idiot! But of course, now. Tawfiq prepared for this just as she had all those orbital platforms in reserve. Hold on.”
“Arun, I’ll have to get back to you. Make sure you remain contactable through the FTL comm link.”
“It’s all right, Indiya. We don’t need to say goodbye. I’ll be with you before you know it, getting under your feet as ever.”
“You will make time for me, Arun, and we will talk later. Indiya out.”
To Hood she said, “New Order SOP is to time simultaneous stealth attacks. There will be other inbound columns we haven’t seen yet. I want to know where they are.”
“The gremlins would disagree, they say the technology signature of the unidentified fleet is non-Hardit. How they can tell anything from stealthed negative space is beyond me, but they’re saying whatever is inbound is connected with the New Order barrier around Earth.”
“Are they saying this isn’t the Hardits? Are you asking me to trust the gut instinct of a race so alien that they first manifested themselves to the Legion in the form of a cup of water?”
“I’m performing your role as your senior duty flag officer, Fleet Admiral.”
Indiya bit her lip. She was snapping at her subordinates more every day.
“There’s more too,” added Hood, “if you wish to hear it.”
Ouch! That stung. “I apologize. Go ahead, Hood.”
“There’s a nearby Littorane squadron on patrol from the Neptune base at Triton that includes a Songstress-class sensor ship. Unlike the Khallenes, Commodore Scalahal says his Songstress is reporting traces of Legion signatures with these hidden ships. This is highly preliminary. Scalahal has ordered his squadron to give every indication that they have not detected the unidentified fleet.”
“Legion…? This could be Lee Xin and her traitor fleet? Scalahal did well to not reveal we can detect them. That might prove crucial. Send patrols to seek out any other incoming fleets, bend every sensor’s ear to the one we have seen so far without giving away that we have detected them. Signal the Mars fleets to prepare to execute Case Amber 21B. The demonstration against Earth and the rescue mission for General McEwan’s team will go ahead as planned.”
“Understood. Executing now.”
“Ready the senior command team for a virtual conference in ten minutes. Until then, leave me to consider my response… unless you have further updates.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
“Good. And Flag-Lieutenant…”
“Yes, Admiral?”
“You have my full confidence.”
“I know, and you mine. Hood out.”
Indiya took a deep breath and closed her eyes so she could wrap the full extent of her powerful mind around this new information.
So, there was a new force interceding in this campaign, a new actor in this drama. Who was it, and what could their intent be?
The obvious absent party was former commander Xin Lee and the huge gap left in the Legion’s naval strength when she mutinied over the terms of the peace treaty with the Emperor. To have formally agreed to the ritual Cull of innocents within the Legion – even at the massively reduced rate they had negotiated – left Indiya feeling as if she were coated in the foulest excrement that no amount of scrubbing could ever clean away. But Indiya had already paid the cost of slaughtering innocents in the name of freedom. Since that day when she’d used Beowulf’s engines as a weapon and caused the death of nearly everyone she had grown up with aboard sister ship Themistocles, her every smile had been forced. Did Xin think that war was won by glory and heroics alone – that humanity could carve out a continued existence in such a hostile galaxy without making ugly choices?
Indiya expunged the mental thread that had allowed itself to be snagged on her hatred for Xin.
That line of thought was emotional foolishness. Xin had simply run away from her responsibilities, not the least of which was her husband. Arun had eventually found solace in that Wolfish aide, Lissa, but Indiya knew he thought often of his child that Xin had taken away in her belly.
Xin hadn’t gone to find new allies or new technology. She had run. Even if she hadn’t, even if she’d kept discipline amongst her fleet of mutineers, Xin simply hadn’t had time to develop new technologies, build a fleet and reach Earth.
But there was one mysterious player yet to reveal themselves.
Indiya had encountered them on the eve of the Legion’s creation, in the last days when she naively believed Beowulf was nothing more than a troopship ferrying young human Marines to the frontier with the Muryani. They’d encountered a stricken ship. Arun had been part of the boarding party. The human crew had identified themselves as the Amilxi, but that name was as unknown as their shipboard technology. They had artificial gravity that meant you could walk the passageways without charged boots as easily as strolling across a planet’s surface. In the decades that had followed, she’d searched endlessly, but hadn’t found so much as a hint that any civilization of any race had ever developed such technology.
She had almost been killed when the anomalous ship had self-destructed as she was being ferried across to it. When she returned safely to her lab aboard Beowulf, her experimental incorruptible black box recording had revealed the biggest a
nomaly of all: the captured crew had been rescued by another ship before destroying their own. Her recorder had shown the truth because it resisted corruption by using chbits quantum-entangled with a pocket universe. No one else had noticed the rescue ship because its existence had been edited out of reality. Even Indiya’s recording had only glimpsed the joins as the replacement version of events had been spliced in.
Since then, her life had been stuffed full of war, extinction, and death, but the terror of what she’d learned that day had never ceased to simmer away in her guts. If these Amilxi could edit reality itself to suit their purposes, could there be any limit to their power? Maybe there had been a thousand Indiyas who had floated previously in this cabin and pondered that same thought. This Indiya – the version of herself she seemed to be now – maybe she was only here because the others had been edited out. What if the Amilxi decided she was no longer following their script? Would she feel anything as she was torn out of reality?
Amilx.
AMILX.
Arun McEwan. Indiya. Lee Xin.
Was that taunt, lure, identification, or coincidence?
Was a future version of herself aboard one of those incoming ships?
Was Xin?
She had to find out.
And all these memories of events long ago made her think of the perfect candidate to go investigating: the first ever human officer aboard a White Knight naval vessel – or so they’d been told by the Jotun commander at the time. She had no love for the disgusting man – had presided over his court martial and would have personally put a round through his skull if Arun hadn’t stopped her. But he had a preternatural knack for getting a reaction out of people.
“Hood.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“Get me Squadron Leader Dock. I have a mission for him.”
— Chapter 56 —
“You, Dock, will select one pilot you trust, and together you will inspect this mystery fleet.”
From his zero-g seat in this secure briefing room, Dock tweaked his moustache, as if that were a gesture respectable people would understand. “This alleged fleet is being inferred from unusual sensor readings,” he answered. “Nothing more. Wouldn’t surprise me if it’s all down to a space pigeon crapping into a sensor dish. Even if it exists, how are my X-Boats supposed to see them?”
“You don’t. Dock, you are very effective at getting yourself noticed. It’s a quality you undoubtedly possess, though until today I have detested you for it. It’s a long shot, but I’m hoping that after all these years, I can turn that to my advantage. You won’t see them, and you will give no indication that you suspect their existence, but you will let them see you and then perhaps we shall find out who they are.”
“Understood,” said Dock. “In that case, I select Remus to join me on this mission.”
Remus! Indiya glared at him from her perch on the briefing podium. What was the fool playing at? The man in question had joined the Wolves long ago and fought in the 7th Armored Claw across many campaigns. As far as Indiya knew, Remus hadn’t been inside a cockpit for decades. “Explain your choice.”
“My pilots need rest. Many are injured. This mission is not a combat one. As far as piloting goes, frankly an AI could do just as well. We don’t really need pilots at all. And Remus I know of old. He’s too rusty to come back to combat duties, but put him back inside an X-Boat and he’ll be fine for this. In fact, he’ll be chomping at the bit to have something useful to do.”
Indiya shook her head. “That’s not all is it, Dock? There’s more. I think perhaps the explanation you gave me is the one you are telling yourself, but you know something else. Tell me what that is.”
Dock looked flustered, which was a rarity in itself. “I was recently on board the Sense of Elation, walking out of a private gathering.”
“This was yesterday morning?”
“Correct.” Dock went a little pale.
“Private gathering? I think the technical term is gambling den.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way,” said Dock. “Gambling den sounds awfully like the kind of thing that might be against regs.”
“I tolerate certain outlets while it suits me. Go on. You were on Sense of Elation. Why should I care?”
“I’m trying to explain that I was relaxed, happy. Money had inexplicably flowed my way as a result of innocent games of chance. And I was thinking of promises I’d just been given of even more pleasurable favors. I was floating calmly on the aftermath of an enjoyable soiree when… bang! A thought hit me that I was going to need Remus with me on an important mission. It was not a subconscious notion welling up from within. The idea definitely came from the outside. Admiral, I have pushed my body beyond its design parameters many times – often for recreational purposes – but I’ve never encountered a thought that hurt. I mean real physical agony like a blunt needle being rammed deep into my brain.”
“And then… what?”
“Nothing. Until you summoned me here and asked your question, I had put the episode down to intoxication.”
“That’s not good enough. Why didn’t you think to report the incident?”
Dock really went pale now. He demonstrated his unfortunate habit of sweating. “I thought… Maybe this was how it started for poor Romulus.”
“Poor Romulus!” Indiya slammed her fist on the lectern. “That person is a chodding traitor. I presided over his trial in absentia and sentenced him to death. I hope the Earth civilians get to him before I do because their punishments are more varied and more deserving than anything I’m officially allowed to give that traitorous filth.”
Indiya knew Dock of old, since he had been an ensign on Beowulf back when Indiya was a child, her parents still alive. Dock could appear callow and limp when he knew he’d been caught out, but push him too far – especially if you questioned his honor when he felt it was not deserved – and he suddenly grew serious backbone. Dock shook his head and squared his shoulders. “I taught Romulus all he knew as a flier. He was a good boy.”
“He was corrupted.”
“Maybe… I believe a part of him is still fighting on our side. I’m sure of it.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t write him off so quickly.”
“Your speculation is irrelevant, unwanted, and without legal weight. Do not speak of such thoughts again. Very well, you may take Remus. Your experience on Sense of Elation could be nothing, but more likely I think it is an intentional message, for which I can see many modes of delivery.”
She considered the possibilities. Theoretically, she could have gotten that thought inside Dock’s head herself using her nano factories, as could her old friend Finfth. Perhaps Dock had experienced interference from Tawfiq’s Blood Virus, but that didn’t sit well with his description. No, there was a more obvious culprit.
“When I dismiss you, report immediately to Med Bay 3 where you will be given a full blood transfusion, and we will inspect your blood for any interference. However, my gut says that little nudge in your head came from the Night Hummers.”
Dock was genuinely shocked “Isn’t that a reason to bench me and take someone else? Neither me nor Remus. I make it a policy not to trust any telepathic suggestions from orange amoeba living in fish tanks.”
Indiya considered Dock’s suggestion. “Your policy is flippant yet sound. But the Legion is in a losing situation here. I need to gamble if we’re to win. Why do you think I’m even talking with you?”
As she was speaking the words, she observed Remus through internal security monitors with a small part of her attention. Ever since Romulus’s betrayal many years earlier, she had made it her business to track both Remus and his brother’s former lover, Janna. Conveniently, they were currently co-located, in an air-filled deck on Holy Retribution, stranded after ferrying the Earth man, Bloehn, into orbit.
When she saw what he was doing, Indiya attempted an inward laugh. Co-location was putting it mildly. Unaware and probably uncaring that they were being observed, Remu
s and Janna were rutting furiously.
Sex was an important biological process. Indiya understood that. It relaxed personnel, improved morale, and bred replacements… as well as causing more fights than anything else.
The titanic man, coated in his alien scales, could have crushed the much slighter woman, and yet, if anything, Janna was the one directing their encounter.
Many years ago, when she’d been a seventeen-year-old cryogenics team specialist aboard Beowulf, she used to dream during her sleep periods of skulking down to Cryo Deck 13 and thawing out the teenager who’d been so fascinated with her when she’d secured him inside his cryo pod.
Marine Arun McEwan: 88th battalion, 412th-TAC, ‘C’ Company, Indigo Squad. Serial# 26X4-388B-9001.
Goddess! She still remembered his serial number.
She’d never so much as earned a demerit in her young life, and the idea of committing such a wild infraction had sent flickers of stomach-twisting excitement shooting through her.
And the thought of sharing that wild adventure with him – the handsome boy in the pod – had aroused passions that were hitherto so dormant within her that she had thought herself broken.
Those teenage fantasies seemed impossibly naïve to her now. They had always ended in a gentle climax of scent patches, soft music, and plump bed coverings, nothing like the visceral reality of pounding muscles, spasms, scales and sweat she was observing on another deck of Holy Retribution. Janna’s delight was obvious, and however hard Indiya pushed her heavily upgraded mind, she couldn’t imagine herself in the Wolf woman’s place.
There had been just one night with Arun when fantasy had edged close to becoming reality. She had just turned eighteen, and she had been frightened, lonely, and crushed under a burden of command that she’d never asked for. She had reached out to Arun, partly because she suspected he felt the same burden, and sharing it seemed the most natural thing in the world…
