Five Planes

by Melissa Scott

  “All traffic in this system is under our control,” the Center answered, sounding faintly annoyed. “A station under power is considered traffic under local regulations.”

  “Understood,” Sun-hwa said, and waited.

  “Zavod Sualti, you are entering a conflict zone,” the Center said. “I repeat, you are entering a conflict zone. We cannot guarantee your safety. Your contract with Apex prohibits you from taking such risks.”

  “If you will examine your communications records,” Rokuro said, “you will find a Termination of Subcontract and a voucher for the breach fee. We are no longer employed by Apex or its parent companies.”

  “We are not authorized to accept your termination,” the Center said.

  “Our contract allows either side to end the contract on payment of the breach fee,” Rokuro said. “Your signature is not required,”

  There was a little silence before the Center answered. “That’ll keep the lawyers employed, but it doesn’t change the risk. I hope you know what you’re doing, Zavod Sualti.”

  “We’re content,” Sun-hwa said. “Zavod Sualti out.” She looked around the control room. “Whoever’s on scan, keep sharp. If we’re going to have trouble, it’s going to start now.”

  “Nothing so far,” Jamahl said, and Val turned his attention to the steering.

  Zavod Sualti was heavy for its size, and hard to steer once it got moving, its mass wanting to stay in its current course, to be shifted only with great effort. Val was still getting the hang of it, though at least now he tended to undercorrect rather than apply too much power and have to correct wildly. They were well out of the system now, still accelerating, the course that would take them to the Drop point curving gently toward the Fissure. At the current acceleration, it would take them another three hours to reach the Drop, and that would bring them in at a speed that allowed for last-minute corrections if needed—

  “Attention,” Antoku said, from the overhead speaker. “Apex Center is reporting a launch.”

  “What ship?” Sun-hwa asked.

  “Denebel, registered to Exomeg Vehicles,” Antoku answered.

  “Blast.” Rokuro leaned forward. “Can we get them on sensors?”

  “Not yet,” Jamahl said. “They’re lost in background scatter.”

  Val risked a glance in Jamahl’s direction. “Problem?”

  “Exomeg also belongs to Hemgi Kaisha,” Jamahl said.

  “Any attempt at contact?” Rokuro asked.

  Thanh shook her head. “Not so far. You don’t really think they’d come after us.”

  “I may have miscalculated,” Rokuro said. “We just cut ourselves loose from Apex, which means an Exomeg ship could claim us as—prize of war? salvage? I’m not sure it really matters. The point is, no one’s obliged to do anything about it.”

  Val looked at Jamahl again. “Can they overtake us?”

  “Working on it.” Jamahl’s fingers flashed across the keys. “Antoku, give me any specs you have for this Denebel.”

  “Downloading.”

  “Thanks.” Jamahl kept working for a moment longer, then leaned back. “Yes, they can catch us, but—it’s not as bad as it might have been. They’re not the fastest ship in Exomeg’s fleet, and they’ve got one engine working at less than optimum.”

  “They had put in for emergency repairs,” Antoku interjected. “Those repairs have not yet been completed.”

  “If we increase acceleration,” Jamahl said, “we can reach the Drop point with about half an hour to spare. Maybe more depending on how fast we want to take her. And if she sees we’re heading for the Drop—well, what are the odds that she’ll back off? It’ll be obvious we’re trying to get away from the fight.”

  “Can we go faster?” Sun-hwa asked, and Val heaved a sigh.

  “Some, yes. I’ve been conservative, I wanted to give us lots of chance to correct our line if we weren’t coming in optimum, but—yes, I can increase acceleration without too much risk.”

  “Do it,” Thanh said, and out of the corner of his eye, Val saw Rokuro nod as well.

  “Understood.” He turned his attention to his controls, adjusting the numbers and watching the line of the projected course shift and flatten. They’d still have time to make adjustment, but it would be tighter than he had hoped.

  “Denebel is also increasing acceleration,” Jamahl said. He transferred the data to Val’s console without waiting to be asked, and Val grimaced at the sight.

  “Increasing our acceleration to maximum,” he said, and allowed himself a sigh of relief as the numbers swam and reformed. They’d have to brake hard to make any adjustments, but that was possible; if worst came to worst, he was confident he could make the Drop on this line and at that speed.

  “They’re falling back,” Jamahl reported, after a moment. “Not trying to match us.”

  “Maybe they realized what we’re doing,” Thanh said. “Maybe they’ll let us go.”

  “Antoku, what’s Denebel’s armament?” Rokuro asked.

  “Officially, she carries three ship-to-ship missiles and two small cannon,” the AI answered. “However, readings of her power output are consistent with larger cannon, or perhaps more small weapons. I will report as soon as I am certain.”

  “How long before they’re in missile range?” Val’s guts cramped at the thought. Zavod Sualti was an enormous, unmissable target.

  “They can fire at long range forty minutes before we reach Drop,” Antoku said.

  “But they won’t,” Sun-hwa said. “We’re a rock. They’ll need to be close in and get lucky before they do us any real damage.”

  “They can mess up the equipment on the surface pretty badly,” Rokuro said. “But I take your point. We can always repair that after we’ve Dropped.”

  As long as they don’t hit us while we’re trying to Drop, Val thought. That had been Iridium Azimuth’s problem, a missile hit just as they Dropped, and it had taken the Fifth Ship to get them out of that. But Sun-hwa was right, Zavod Sualti’s unwieldy mass would be protection there, too.

  With voice-and-vision links between the ships muted and shrunk to pastel windows, the main display showed the pirate ship—Last Fair Deal—motionless against the stars. After a moment, al-Ghazali shot to her feet and pointed. “There’s the lifepod.”

  “We’ve got it,” Sapnara said. Grapples took the pod, reeling it toward them.

  Nalani stood up. “As soon as he’s aboard, have him sent up here.” She allowed herself a silent sigh. With Bhagwati safe…assuming he was…the worst risk was over. Now she could do what she had to.

  “We’re not done yet,” she said, her voice soft yet firm. “This next part is the trickiest. I need you all at the top of your game.” A breath. “Voice and vision.”

  The exterior view faded, and once again the main display was dominated by the hooded pirate captain in her massive chair. She raised her head, her features completely concealed, and Nalani felt her mouth go dry.

  “You have your Judge. If you’ll transmit the rest of what you owe me, we can both be on our way.”

  “Not just yet. You haven’t fulfilled all the terms of our deal.” Nalani fastened her eyes on the pirate’s hooded face, projecting uncompromising strength. (“Crew reports Bhagwati’s aboard. Medtechs are checking him out.”) “Captain ap Farr, we agreed to face-to-face contact, verified by Sen Savoire and Sen bin Marrick.” She waited a beat, then said between tight lips, “You have not shown your face.”

  Ap Farr leaned back in her chair. “Absurd. You have my name, you know my ship. All else, I keep to myself.”

  “Captain ap Farr, you are to be detained on suspicion of murder.” To her codex, Nalani directed, (“Have the military vessels ping her.”) “There’s no point in attempting to flee. My ships can track you and overtake you even in hyperspace.”

  The pirate glanced at a screen, then looked again to Nalani. “What’s this nonsense about a murder charge? I returned him safely.”

  Hands on hips, Nalani s
aid, “You are operating a stolen Judiciary codex. The owner is presumed dead, and you’re the prime suspect.” (“Bhagwati’s on his way.”) “You can bargain and bluster your way out of anything else—but you’re not getting away with this one.” She narrowed her eyes. “Show…your…face.”

  The pirate sat motionless for long moments, as even the members of her own crew turned to look at her. Then, without any physical sign of surrender, she stood tall and imperious. “Switching to unaltered voice-and-vision. Bin Marrick, certify as such.”

  Bin Marrick stroked his console, looked up at Nalani. “Unaltered v-and-v certified.”

  “Milos,” Nalani said, without releasing the pirate from her gaze. “Do you trust him?”

  “I…I do, Thurgood.”

  “I’m waiting, Captain.”

  The pirate reached up and lowered her hood, revealing a pale face and pure white hair, shadowed eyes, lips the color of dying dwarf stars. She reached down and brought up an obsidian cane, resting the handle on her lips.

  Nalani staggered back a step, felt the chair behind her, and straightened. (“Identity confirmed,”) her codex said.

  Far behind her, Bhagwati burst into the room. ”Thurgood, you have to know, it’s important…the pirate, she’s got the Cubaba Codex.”

  Nalani looked back at him, her lips twitching in a smile for which she had no number. “I know,” she said, and turned back to the pirate. She bobbed her head in a quick bow, and barely above a whisper said, “Hello, Jinan-Jorie.”

  The pirate bobbed her head in the same fashion. ”Hello, Nalani. Can we dispense with this talk of murder now?”

  Nalani turned to the others, whose faces danced between alarm and bafflement. “My friends, I present Supreme Justice Accursius XVII, en counsel with the Cubaba Codex.”

  Compressed and boosted by 3P2D servers, the distress call from Coquimbo entered the transplanar comm stream coded as a five-star top priority message.

  Every multiplanar ship on the Third Plane received the message, stored and ranked with all the other exabytes awaiting transport to other Planes. Every ship continued receiving until seconds before Drop. Every ship carried its own version of the stream on a Drop that could last from a few dozen hours to over a year.

  The median Drop time was two or three months—but there were always ships that beat the median. For any particular message, there was always a ship that was fastest.

  First to the Second Plane, in a Drop of just over two days, was the freighter Darsana Consequence. Upon emerging from the Fissure, the freighter’s AI routinely transmitted its copy of the stream to the Plane-based AIs that combed through the stream and dispersed messages as necessary: already delivered by another ship, marked for local delivery, route to next Plane. With five-star priority, the distress call was on its way before Darsana Consequence’s transfer engines cooled.

  Mail-and-personnel carrier Apeiron Mist reached the First Plane before any other ship, in a record 1.6-day Drop. The distress call was picked up by private vessel Sourwood Eschaton, which survived the tricky ricochet off the Spindle to Vault to the Fifth Plane in only 2.56 days.

  On Fifth, copies of the message departed on 27 ships in two days before the Drop of military carrier Barium Maculate, also en route from the First Plane, which beat all the others to Fourth with a Drop of 42 hours.

  The AIs of the Fourth Plane recognized the distress call’s priority and instantly queued it for Plane-wide emergency broadcast. A final AI took three million nanoseconds to verify that the message was legitimate and contained no malicious code, then passed it through to the broadcast bots.

  After nearly 11 days in transit, Coquimbo’s cry for help rang out across the Fourth Plane.

  Nalani ordered the military ships to stand down, and Accursius docked Last Fair Deal and allowed her crew to come aboard Nalani’s ship.

  The dome was transformed; the central holostage with its guardrail was gone, couches were arranged in casual conversational groups, and the kitchen replaced the snack tray with scattered tables laden with a vast assortment of finger foods and drinks—including a pyramid of marble-size amber spheres, each one a sip of sparkling wine.

  Nalani insisted that the ship’s crew be encouraged to share the treats; they appeared in stages and clumped together. Milos and bin Marrick sat against one wall, close together. Nalani and Accursius took seats facing one another. In between, the others steered clear of both couples.

  “I thought I’d never find you,” Nalani said. “I didn’t realize you were there all along.”

  Accursius shrugged. “I didn’t intend to involve you.”

  “You left me a message on Fifth. You said you needed help.”

  “I said that I may need help.” Her eyebrows contracted, just a bit. “As I recall, I also specifically asked you not to come in with guns blazing.”

  “If you’re not going to tell me what you’re doing, you can’t complain when I do it my way.”

  Accursius smiled. “I’ve missed you. Look, I’d rather the news of my identity stay close. Can you trust these people?”

  “Definitely.” Nalani’s eyes strayed to the two Justices. “Li Kui and Hanbal are on my side. They agreed to keep everything involving this case confidential, but just in case I had my codex seal theirs. Until it releases them, they can’t talk.”

  “That’ll have to do.” Accursius shook her head. “There’s no help for it, you’re in the situation now. I heard that you cleaned the codices on Fifth.”

  Nalani nodded. “And on down through the Planes.”

  “Won’t help. A few years and the corruption will be back. Whoever we’re up against, they’re good.”

  “Have you learned anything since you left me that message? You were vague on details.”

  “It’s a big, powerful organization. They’re on all the Planes, with agents in multiple institutions. The pirate boss Lasser on Second is almost certainly one of them.”

  “What about here? Is Ocampo one of theirs?”

  “I suspect he is, but I don’t have proof. I’m keeping an eye on him.” Accursius chewed her lip. “I don’t know what he’s up to with this war.”

  Nalani rolled her eyes. “They want to use it to spur technological advance. One of the CEOs I talked to spoke particularly of transplanar hyperphysics.”

  “Hmmm.” Accursius stroked her chin. “That sounds plausible.”

  “If we work together, we could stop this war and take Ocampo down.”

  “Nal, I don’t know about jumping back into the Judicial saddle. I have projects that I need to—”

  Lights flashed red, and the emergency tritone sounded. Half the dome lit with two faces, both heavy with implants.

  Breaking—Five-star distress call received for Plane-wide broadcast. Message begins.

  The two people, a reporter and a planetary engineer, briefly explained the plight of their colony world, Coquimbo. The message lasted only ninety seconds; at the end, the camera pulled close on the reporter. “Folks, you heard what the engineer said. And entire planet is at stake. Please, find that generator and get it to us.”

  The two Supreme Justices looked at one another. Nalani said, “Feel like taking on another project?”

  Accursius harrumphed. “Not much of a project.” She lifted her cane. “I suppose I can spare a few hours. It would be nice to work together again, just this once.”

  “Who knows, it might be so much fun—”

  “—That I decide to stay and help you end the war?” She shot her cane a nasty look. “I don’t remember asking your opinion.” She held out her hand. “Let’s get that generator on its way, before I change my mind.”

  After the first hour, they’d moved to a smaller workroom, lined in screens and consoles, the local servers stuffed with useful programs and all of the little ship’s oversized communications gear under their control. The other justices slipped in and out of the space or passed word through their codices—Cubaba, Jinan-Jorie thought, was positively reveling in its rea
ppearance. The apprentices came in person, and Jinan-Jorie noted that they always brought a fresh tray of food or drink, and took the dirtied dishes away with them. As always, Nalani had woven them into something more like a family than a team.

  “It’s fundamentally fairly simple,” Nalani proclaimed, Li Kui and al-Ghazali nodding loyal agreement. “A five-star distress call overrides everything, all other obligations, and we as Supreme Justices are in perfect position to enforce that—”

  “You’re in perfect position,” Jinan-Jorie interjected. “Remember, I’m not here.”

  “I am in a perfect position to enforce it,” Nalani agreed. “And enforce it I shall. Bhagwati’s located the generator—it was being shipped aboard the Quintile Illumination, as a matter of fact.”

  Jinan-Jorie laughed. “Had I but known! Have you figured out who killed the ship’s AI?”

  “I’ve been busy with other things,” Nalani answered. “Some of which were your doing.”

  “Touché.” Jinan-Jorie felt Cubaba nudge her thoughts, and glanced at her screen in time to see the answer to her most recent query float up into focus among the multiple windows. “Ah. Give me a moment.”

  “Take as long as you like.” Nalani looked back at the other justices. “Under the interplanar trade codes, chapter 17, sections 2j and 3a through c, we can commandeer any ship on the Plane to respond to the appeal.”

  (“I would call section 3 as a whole the more relevant text,”) Cubaba murmured, and Jinan-Jorie bit back a grin.

  (“Be kind.”) She paused, considering the most recent iteration of the shipping register. (“Locate Hemgi Kaisha’s most powerful ships—best armed, most likely to double as military craft—then do the same for the other four. Also find any other generators on the Fourth Plane that could meet Coquimbo’s need.”)

  (“Very well.”) There was a brief pause. (“Ah. Abi-eshuh is already working on the latter problem.”)

  (“Don’t bother duplicating the effort, then.”) Jinan-Jorie was suddenly aware that she was very thirsty, and stretched to take another drink bottle from the nearest tray. It was a mildly stimulating tisane, enough to keep her awake without subjecting her to stim deprivation later, and she twisted off the cap, the bottle cooling sharply under her hand.