Hell's Reach (Galactic Liberation Series Book 6)

by B. V. Larson

  “We’re safe from immediate threats,” Loco replied, double-checking the sensors. “Unless there are more lying doggo. Looks like about forty ships are heading our way, though, and some are heavy cruisers. We’ll gather as much intel as we can, then run back through the wormhole ahead of the posse.”

  “And that’s that. Dead end.”

  “For now. We can’t fight them all, not even with our rocks—and we can’t ask the rocks to die for our cause.”

  “Too bad we don’t have a bunch more Lithoids,” Chiara mused.

  Loco cocked his head at her. “They said they’re lost. If we could lead these to rejoin their people, we could make friends, become allies against the Axis.”

  “That could take weeks, months—years maybe.”

  “Yeah. Better to run home and get the fleet, though even the entire Breakers contingent would be outnumbered and outgunned. And it means no immediate rescue for the six Breakers they kidnapped.”

  “I know.” Chiara leaned over to put a hand on Loco’s neck, fingers twining with his short black hair. “It feels like a knife in the gut, running away. But what else can we do?”

  “Nothing.” Loco stared bleakly at the console. “If Derek were here, he’d come up with some impossible plan and make it work anyway.”

  “You can’t compare yourself with a legend, Loco. Besides, I don’t think even our great Liberator could do better than we did. We found the bastards’ base, and whatever they’re doing, they’re up to no good. That’s a win, and far more than I ever expected. Let’s get back and tell someone.”

  The reverse transit through the wormhole again seemed to be no more than stepping through a door. What Loco didn’t expect was what waited at the other end.

  At the new end, he corrected himself... because where they arrived wasn’t where they’d started from.

  The sensors showed Cassiel now sailed within a vast sphere of relatively empty space, bounded by the glowing gas of the nebula, but pushed outward, perhaps by the stellar wind of the bright white star in the center. Within this bubble orbited a bewildering array of objects ranging from full-fledged gas giants and their moons, through more ordinary planets, with and without atmosphere, down to small black holes attached to wormholes—scores of them.

  Within and among these many hundreds of objects swirled living creatures by the thousands—energy signatures and vortexes, things like the jellyfish or plankton they’d encountered, larger creatures that cruised in stately herds like whales among floes of icy comets near the boundary—more than they could categorize or take in. None were exactly like what they’d encountered before, but Loco was starting to see that nebula life fell into categories.

  “Oh, shit,” he breathed as he took it in. “What do we do now?”

  Chiara pointed. “Maybe we try to talk to them.”

  “Lithoids!” The signatures were clear. Hundreds of groups of the rocks, many much larger and more numerous than the ones accompanying the ship, converged on Cassiel and her escorting rocks. They danced and swirled among their fellows, joyously firing lightings from chunk to chunk like a summer storm in the desert.

  Richards burst into the cockpit once more, followed by Sylvester and others crowding behind. “Sir! Sir! It’s their people! The Lithoids!”

  “I got that feeling, Spacer,” Loco said dryly, “and that’s great... but what we could really use is information about this place—and how to get out. The wormhole we expected to take us back along our path instead took us here. That means something can change the connections between wormholes—which means something’s controlling them—like a network. Do the Lithoids control the wormhole network, or is there some other race or intelligence in charge? And how do we get home? We need to know.”

  Richards’ face fell. “Yeah, right. I’ll try to find out.”

  “You do that.”

  Chief Sylvester put a hand on Richards’ shoulder to guide him back toward his station. “He’s a good kid; just a little excitable, sir.”

  “No problem, Chief. We need to keep the big picture in mind, though. We only have a few more days of oxygen and supplies. I don’t want to be reduced to trial and error by flying through random wormholes, or having to land on one of the green planets here just to survive. We’re Breakers, and we have a mission.”

  “Aye aye, sir. I’ll keep Richards pushing for the information we need.” Sylvester departed.

  “What do we do until then?” Chiara asked. “I’m getting really tired of this watch-and-watch in the cockpit. I need eight or ten uninterrupted hours of sleep.”

  Due to his genetic engineering, Loco never needed as much sleep as normals did, but he could sympathize. “We don’t have any pilots among our Breakers, but the junior noncoms could stand cockpit watches. Things look safe enough for the moment, with our Lithoids all around us. Let’s take a break and get you to bed.”

  Chiara stood and smiled weakly. “No candy bar though. I’m exhausted.”

  “Huh?” Loco asked.

  “Candy bar,” she said suggestively. “It means a quickie—a quick treat, you know?”

  “Never heard that one.”

  “Never mind. Old cinevid reference.”

  After issuing instructions to the chief, Loco helped Chiara into bed and held her for the minute or two it took her to fall deeply asleep. A tiny snore drifted from her nostrils, and he gazed down at her with confused affection.

  Candy bar. He’d heard it differently, before: a nickname for a certain kind of woman—half sweet, half nuts.

  “You’re my candy bar,” he whispered before kissing her forehead and stretching out next to her for a catnap.

  Loco awoke in an hour. Refreshed, he ate, and then checked on the situation.

  “The Lithoids have moved off now,” Richards explained as he sat at his terminal in the hold. “They’re still within comms range, but they’re leaving us alone.”

  “Lost interest?”

  “They’re still answering if I say something, but it looks like they’re, I dunno, feeding maybe? Moving in closer to the star, sucking up stray rocks... ”

  “Well, no reason to think it would last,” Loco said.

  “The bigger Lithoids are much more intelligent than ours,” Richards continued. “I think they’re the parents and our guys were, I dunno, like a litter of puppies that decided to go off and play. They blundered through a wormhole and by the time the parents went looking, they were lost. The wormhole had changed destination. Then they grew up some, but without parents to educate them they were like... kids lost in the woods for all their lives.”

  Loco pondered. “So that means the Lithoids don’t control the wormholes... and it seems like they can’t talk to whoever does.”

  “Yes, sir,” Richards said, “otherwise they’d have asked where their kids went. They say the wormholes change their connections without warning—though once one changes, it’s usually a while before it changes again. The Lithoids are pretty smart. The grown-up ones, I mean. They have a fairly complex recon system where they send through a single rock—like part of one of them—with orders to turn around and come back right away. One rock by itself is pretty stupid, but it can see and remember things, so it’s like a probe. This way, they have corporate knowledge of where all the wormholes go.”

  “They know where the other ends are?”

  “More or less. Sometimes they can tell their position within the nebula. Sometimes they can only guess, based on what they see—and sometimes they go somewhere new.”

  “Always within the nebula?” Loco asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But this nebula is light-years across. If I remember my cosmology theory, wormholes don’t move things FTL. Does that line up with the Lithoids’ observations?”

  “Let me ask.” Richards typed questions into his terminal.

  The answers Loco could read over his shoulder were full-fledged and comprehensible now, though still run through the translation program and turned into universal
machine code for the Lithoids’ benefit.

  “They say travel through these wormholes is instantaneous, no matter how far.”

  Loco’s jaw slackened in surprise. “Wow. I wish Zaxby or Murdock were here. They’d go nuts. Instant FTL! Stargates, like in science fiction! If we could control them... My God, what we couldn’t do with it.”

  “Or what the Predators could do with them... ” Richards said.

  “Bite your tongue, kid. But you’re right. This makes it doubly important we shut down whatever the Axis is doing, before they figure out how to access the wormhole network. Let’s hope there is some kind of intelligence controlling it, something that will defend itself. Or that wormholes are random, uncontrollable phenomena.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chief Sylvester cleared his throat. “We got another problem, sir. We lost one of the big oxygen generators to the barracuda attack. The scrubbers are still good, but in about a day and a half we’ll start having some problems. Even if we solve the oxygen problem, we’ll soon be out of water, and then food. We really need to find our way out of here.”

  “Maybe not, Chief,” the cockpit watchstander said from the doorway. “I just picked up a signal. An incoming message.”

  Chapter 27

  Hell’s Reach, SBS Trollheim.

  Straker stepped onto the bridge as the implacable wormhole swallowed the dreadnought. He instinctively braced himself against the bulkhead, anticipating a disaster that didn’t come.

  Not yet, anyway.

  The holotank showed Trollheim arriving near a bright white star. The nebula surrounded the system—presumably the Hellheim nebula, rather than some other—but the space within the star system was clear, a relief from the usual obscuring gas. Dozens, hundreds, then thousands of objects appeared within the display as the sensors and the SAI sorted out the readings—singularities with wormholes attached, planets of all sizes and types with their attendant moons, and planetoids ranging from tiny to respectable-sized. To Straker’s practiced eye, they were far too close to each other. Gravity interactions alone should have long ago turned this order into chaos before eventually finding natural stability.

  This was far from natural.

  Among these thousands of objects swirled living creatures, thousands, perhaps millions of them. There were too many to show individually, and the SAI struggled to sort them into groupings and categorize them.

  “The science team’s going to be busy,” Straker said, arms crossed and gazing speculatively at the sophisticated display.

  “Busy with the right things, I’ll make sure,” Salishan replied. “Threat assessments, not brainiac fun. Comms, pass the word to the science team: focus on threats, mission-essential tasks, and report all findings to Intelligence. Commander Sinden to task the science team as needed.”

  “Aye aye.”

  “Sensors, I need your initial findings ASAP.”

  “Working them up now, ma’am.” The sensors officer and her assistant scrambled to pull meaning from the overwhelming flood of data. “No immediate threats detected. Several dangerous life-form types within two hours’ travel. Wormholes with their singularities, plotting now... These are obvious hazards. In fact, the one generating this end of our wormhole is at close range.” Icons flashed and turned colors to illustrate her words.

  Salishan raised her voice. “Helm, take us away from the nearest singularity, impellers only.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am.”

  “Stand down from battle stations. Maintain Alert Two.”

  “Alert Two, aye.”

  “Ma’am, secure comlink from Zaxby aboard Redwolf,” Comms said.

  “Put him on.”

  “Zaxby here. General Straker, this system is entirely artificial.”

  “Yes,” Straker said mildly. “Even we neurotypical simpletons can see that.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, sir,” Zaxby said. “Your limitations are not your fault. You are a designed being, sadly manipulated as a child, who rose above his circumstances to—”

  Straker overrode him. “Do you have some useful information for us?”

  “Yes. The star is highly anomalous. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s impossible.”

  “And yet, there it is.”

  “Impossible in its apparent configuration. White stars are naturally young, large, and extremely hot. This one is about the size of common yellow G type, typified by Old Earth’s sun, and is far cooler. If not for its spectral emissions, I’d call it a red dwarf.”

  “Aren’t there white dwarfs?”

  “Yes, but those are old and tiny, barely larger than an ordinary solid planet, and extremely dense. As I said, this one is diffuse and cool—so cool that a properly equipped ship could fly into and out of its corona without damage—rather like a red giant. The point is, this star should not exist in its current configuration. Ergo, it is artificial, or has been altered in some way. Add to that the forty-six singularities I’ve so far charted and the behavior of the wormhole that brought us here, and I must posit that this is a controlled and engineered star system.”

  “So where are the engineers?” Straker asked. “Are they the butterfly collectors? The ones who brought us here?”

  “That’s the fundamental question, isn’t it?” Zaxby asked, lighting up. “I have a theory—more of a conjecture, really, but given the clue I provided, even you should be able to intuit its essence.”

  Straker pondered his words and hoped he wasn’t about to experience another lecture. “You think the engineers might live inside the star?”

  “First prize for Derek Straker. It’s certainly possible. An intelligence that can manipulate singularities and create wormholes on demand could certainly take up residence inside a cool star. It could be highly advantageous—for concealment, for defense, for its abundant energy. Perhaps the engineers simply find it hospitable. Perhaps they are as comfortable in high-temperature environments as Thorians are in high-radiation environments.”

  “That’s all very interesting, Zaxby, but we’re on a mission. Use that big brain of yours to find us a way to the Predator base.”

  “I strongly suspect whoever built and maintains this system knows how to get there, via these wormholes. If it—or they—are inside that star... ”

  Irrational hope surged suddenly through Straker. “I need to talk to them.”

  “We don’t know if there is anything to talk to. My ideas are merely a hypothesis.”

  “Can Roentgen see anything within the star?”

  “In fact, it was he who pointed out the initial anomaly: too many neutrinos. He suspects neutrino beams from the star are being used to control the singularities, rather like we use tightbeam laser comms.”

  “What if he takes up a position between the star and a singularity? Could he intercept the neutrino beam, try to see what it’s saying?”

  “As usual, your mind lags behind mine. Observe: the Redwolf is already taking up such a position.”

  The holotank confirmed what Zaxby said. The yacht had moved off to place herself between the star and the nearest singularity, the one attached to the wormhole from which they arrived.

  “Roentgen reports neutrino increases. He says there’s a modulated beam, implying it contains information. We will work on deciphering it. It may take some time.”

  “Get working. Straker out.” He turned back to the holotank display, which continued to acquire detail as data arrived and was processed. “Straker to Sinden.”

  “Sinden here.”

  “Anything I need to know?”

  “Operationally, no, sir. I’ll report significant findings via the Intel watchstander on the bridge, and urgent matters directly, as usual.”

  “Of course, Nancy,” Straker said. “Thanks.”

  “Sir, when you get a free moment, could you stop by the Intel spaces? Nothing urgent—perhaps when next you make rounds?” Her voice seemed studiedly casual.

  That was an unusual request for Sinden. Normally the ti
ghtly wound, highly efficient intelligence officer kept to the usual, formal channels. Still, there were always undercurrents on a crowded ship with more than a thousand people aboard. Maybe this was something like that—like Gurung’s extra people and their “recreational activities,” or Mara’s usurping the infirmary from the ship’s appointed doctor, or Zaxby and his ad-hoc, add-on laboratory activities.

  “Sure. I’ll make a note.” Straker tapped a reminder into his handtab, and then began to pace. He wanted to order the ship to go somewhere, to continue the mission, but he had no idea where to go. The wormhole had brought them here and no disaster had ensued. Repairs continued from the damaging attempt to avoid the inevitable, so it wasn’t as if time was being lost—except for those in Korven captivity.

  For Carla.

  Did it make any sense to try to return through the same wormhole? Probably not. The star-dwelling engineers—as evidenced by the neutrino beam—wanted Trollheim here. Why? To add to their butterfly menagerie? The individual types of life identified by the SAI and science team looked to be in the hundreds already, and the numbers were climbing fast.

  “Any evidence of other artificial ships here?” he called to no one in particular. “Habs? Constructs other than the wormholes?”

  An icon flashed among the many in the holotank, and the sensors officer spoke up. “This one might be a ship. Refined metals, conventional shape. No power signature or emissions, though, sir.”

  “Pass the word for one of our skimmers to go take a look.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” Comms relayed the orders. Soon, one of the three Ruxin-crewed skimmers—the Teredo—shot away.

  Within minutes, they confirmed a ship of unknown type, conventional in size and configuration, likely a military frigate. Apparently it was old and had been here for decades, perhaps centuries.

  “Send in a recon team,” Straker ordered.

  Soon, the Ruxin team explored a ship long dead, with no power and perhaps a hundred mummified three-armed aliens. “It looks as if they opened their airlocks and committed suicide,” the Ruxin skimmer commander reported. “Very strange, considering that several life-bearing worlds are present here in this system.”