Riordan glanced at the navplot near the center of the bridge. “So where the hell did they come from?”
Schoeffel drifted toward the faux 3-D chart table, shrank the scale. Both of Wolf 424’s red dwarfs came into view. The guidon indicating Down-Under’s position was tucked behind what appeared to be a blue marble orbiting the closer star. She pointed to it. “That’s us, snugged in on the dark side of the only gas giant, not quite as big as Neptune.” She pointed to the five red motes. The computer projection traced their known vectors and then extrapolated backward, showed them as emerging from around the far side of Wolf 424 A. “Didn’t see them coming, given the angle.”
“The angle?” asked Ed, who had drifted closer.
Schoeffel pointed impatiently at distant Wolf 424 B, which was mostly eclipsed by the primary star. “The planet and two stars are almost in syzygy. From our position at the gas giant, Wolf 424 B is almost in perfect opposition and only a few degrees off the ecliptic.”
Ed nodded. “So, when they came from the far side of 424 A, probably a week or so ago, they had the other star—424 B—at their back. Sensors couldn’t pick them out.”
Schoeffel nodded. Her expression suggested that Peña had risen slightly in her opinion. “Even if they were under thrust, our sensors would have had to stay fixed on exactly the right spot to have any chance of noticing any spectral wiggle their exhausts would have caused.” She glanced at Riordan. “Sorry, sir. This tub’s arrays are nothing like milspec.”
Caine nodded. “Which they were counting on. Just as they were counting on our main hull—and therefore, the main array—being behind the gas giant, shielding ourselves from flares while we refueled. Textbook. What do you think they are, Captain?”
“Drones. No doubt about it. Ratio of acceleration to approximate mass says those platforms are extremely compact. No room for life support systems.”
Riordan looked at the navplot again. “I agree. Which is why there’s probably another piece on the game board that we haven’t seen yet.”
“Their shift-carrier, sir?” The sensor officer pointed behind Wolf 424 A. “Almost still on the far side, where we can’t see her.”
Riordan shook his head. “I’m thinking there’s something a lot closer to us.”
The captain frowned at the navplot, then raised an eyebrow. “A control craft.”
Riordan nodded. “We are almost two AU from 424 A: sixteen light-minutes, more or less. If these are unpiloted vehicles, then their actions are being controlled in one of three ways. One: from their probable point of origin, which means a thirty-two-minute command cycle. Two: they are in a fully autonomous attack mode. Or, three: there’s a control ship that’s probably within a few light-seconds.”
Schoeffel nodded. “The last option is the only one that makes sense. Those drones will be dead twenty times over if they have to wait half an hour for orders. On the other hand, autonomous controls might fail to engage the priority target.” She looked meaningfully at Riordan. “But if they’ve got a control ship out there, it must be lying doggo.”
Riordan scanned the plot. “Does this gas giant have any satellites?”
“None. And only one other starward planet within an AU.”
“Then it’s probably a very small craft maintaining a position on the opposite side of this gas giant.”
Schoeffel shook her head. “I doubt it. We’ve had automated fuel skimmers making runs around the bright side. Never got a sensor return.”
Riordan raised an eyebrow. “Were the skimmers running autonomously?”
Schoeffel nodded, then grinned ruefully. “Yeah. Rudimentary sensor package slaved to even more rudimentary auton.” She maneuvered closer to him. “That means they could have doggo drones back there with the control ship.”
Riordan nodded. “Expect these bogeys to make a pass at such high relative velocity that you have damn little chance to hit them. The doggo drones could then swing around from the blind side of the gas giant and clean up whatever the first group didn’t get.”
Schoeffel glanced at the plot. “Judging from the bogeys’ rate of approach, they’ll cover those two light-seconds in about ten minutes. At most.”
Riordan nodded. “Right. So how can I—?”
“You can go with Mr. Peña, Commodore,” Schoeffel interrupted. She nodded to Peña, who drifted unusually close to Riordan. “We have a contingency for this, but we don’t have a lot of time.” She nodded aft. “So, smartly now.”
“Captain—” Riordan stopped, momentarily caught between his resolve to survive and save Elena, and his reflex to never leave comrades to fight in his stead.
Apparently sensing that, Schoeffel pushed closer, her breath soured by anxiety. “Commodore, you’ve got to go now.”
“But the mission—”
“You are the mission,” Ed added from behind. It was the first time Caine had heard any emphasis in his otherwise monotone voice. “C’mon, sir. We’ve got to go.”
Riordan felt rage, gratitude, shame, looked to find words, couldn’t, knew every passing second was an unacceptable risk.
He turned and launched himself into a long glide back toward the entry.
* * *
Once they were inside the keel-following shuttle-car, Peña nodded for Caine to strap in. Caine did, just as the car’s sudden acceleration almost threw him out of his seat. They were pulling more than a gee.
Peña smiled slightly. “The Old Lady has overridden the safety parameters. We’ll be there in about ninety seconds.”
“Where?”
“Aft cargo moorings.”
Riordan frowned, then realized. “Not all of those bulk cargo containers are filled with routine stores, are they?”
Peña shook his head, watched the overhead transit monitor plot their progress down the keel.
Riordan tapped his collarcom. “Access command channel. Authorization: Riordan One.” Bridge chatter abruptly emerged from his tiny communicator, as well as one-sided conversations with engineering, flight operations, and gunnery. The latter was a woefully short exchange. As a commercial shift-carrier, Down-Under had no offensive systems, just point-defense fire lasers for splashing inbound warheads.
Peña seemed distracted by the chatter, as if he didn’t want to listen to it but couldn’t keep from doing so. When he saw Caine studying him, he looked away. Quickly.
Suddenly, Caine understood. “You and Schoeffel sure did have me fooled. Are you two still an item, or is that long past?”
Peña sighed. “Past. Had to be. Happened when we were serving.”
“And you were enlisted and she was an officer?”
He shrugged. “You know how it is. Even if people are willing to look the other way, the stable boy still can’t date the princess.”
Riordan nodded. “You two make a pretty good team.”
“We did. I guess we still do.” The car braked hard, pushing them sideways against their straps. “Here we are. Move out. Sir.”
Riordan threw off the restraints, took a long step to the opening door, and stopped in surprise. There, clearly visible beyond a double docking collar, was a short passageway he knew very well: the entry to his old ship, the Puller. But, even as Ed’s hand locked firmly on his bicep and began propelling him forward into the boarding tube, Caine realized that although this was indeed a Wolfe-class corvette, it was not Puller. She had none of the same dings and dents. Or Slaasriithi modifications.
Ed explained. “There are three corvettes inside this cargo container: Mercer, Cradock, and Bridges.” They crossed over the coaming as the tempo of the clipped bridge chatter and preflight checks accelerated. “This corvette, Mercer, has extra fuel: she can sprint a long time.” They headed aft. “The other two Wolfes are carrying double ordnance loads. We run, they fight.”
“Then why are you leading me away from the bridge?”
“Because Mercer has also been retrofitted with an escape system.”
Caine rounded the corner into what would have b
een, on any other Wolfe-class corvette, the last bunkroom—and saw a nightmare, instead. An escape pod. The kind that not only powered you swiftly away from a stricken ship, but automatically strapped you down and forced you into cryogenic suspension. “This isn’t neces—”
Ed pushed him hard from behind. “I know you hate this, Commodore. If I’d been in an icebox as often as you have, I’d feel the same way.” There was a loud kra-thrunk, a sudden sideways motion, and a shift in balance. “Mercer’s away, sir. You’ve got to get in. Now.”
Riordan nodded, started stripping off his duty suit, hung on to the collarcom.
Schoeffel’s voice was snapping rapid orders. “PDF batteries three and four, keep an eye on planet horizon to aft. Slower drones could come from that direction. Cradock, you have the ball when we go active with the remote arrays. Comms, I need redundant lascom links to all ships and platforms. Yolanda?”
“Flight here. What you need, Skipper?”
“Push those skimmers out further; make them look like patrolling hunter-drones.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll try.”
“You do that. And stay in our shadow as long as you can.”
“No argument there, Down-Under.”
Then a voice that was more surprised than worried, more perplexed than urgent. “Captain, Sensor Ops here.”
“I can see your code, Mister Guzman. What have you got?”
“I’m not sure, Captain. I—”
“Holy shit!” shouted another voice; the tone froze Riordan in place. “What the hell is that?”
“Energy spike. Range seven light-minutes. No! Range one light-min— Wait. This can’t be—”
“It’s the Dornaani!” yelled the XO, Malatesta.
“Or Ktor, or something else,” Schoeffel said in a loud, grim voice. “Settle down. This could be a trick.” The channel changed. Peña’s own collarcom toned. “Eddie: is the package secure?”
“He’s just about to—”
“Eddie, secure the damn package! Now!”
Peña put a hand on his holster. “I don’t want to use the tranq gels, Commodore.”
Riordan nodded, felt Mercer buck and rock: evasive action. He jumped into the cryopod, flopping facedown on the belly couch. Orders and counterorders screamed out of his collarcom. One of the shuttle pilots yelled about a new bogey—then static.
Peña slapped the pod actuator, shouted, “Package secure!”
Restraints went over Caine’s arms, shoulders, waist, legs, and snapped tight. The belly couch slammed forward, locked in place as the cover descended and sealed overhead: an egg bounded within an egg.
The collarcom was still emitting commands and curses and shouts about the Arat Kur and the Dornaani and the new bogeys when Riordan felt the first needle go into his arm: just as brisk, efficient, and icy as the first time, five years ago.
The synthetic morphine rushed into him and then flowed rapidly outward into his extremities, a sensation at once warm and treacherous as he tried to hold on to thoughts that might very well be his last.
Connor’s sun-brightened smile. Elena’s high cheekbones and fine nose. Then Caine was there with her, their eyes and their lips moving closer, closer—but instead of a kiss, their faces flowed together, merged. And became Connor’s.
Just before darkness washed in from everywhere, drowning everything.
Chapter Thirteen
MARCH 2124
DEEP SPACE, GJ 1119
Consciousness.
More accurately, just a vague awareness that he existed. True consciousness—the immense web of associations that create selfhood—followed an instant later, but was still indistinct. Then, with a rush, he was inside that web, inhabiting it—
He awoke with a gasp, tearing himself out of an ink-black dream of blind drowning—
“You are safe, Caine Riordan.”
Caine realized his eyes were already open. The light was soft and diffuse, and the ceiling—if that’s what it was—curved gently over him, a muted white. Memory summoned the face that went along with the voice: “Alnduul?”
“Yes. Be at your ease. Allow the restoratives to hasten your recovery. Distress impedes their function.”
Riordan discovered he was lying upon a slightly yielding surface, his body covered by a thin, but surprisingly warm, sheet. Alnduul’s large eyes were visible over the twin crests of his draped feet.
Memory rushed back in. “The ship, the Down-Under, is it—?”
Alnduul rose. “Captain Schoeffel sends her regards and wishes you ‘god speed.’” Centered beneath his large eyes, the Dornaani’s single nostril flared slightly. “The shift-carrier and all but one of its subcraft survived the encounter.”
“I suspect we have you to thank for that.”
The Dornaani’s head bowed stiffly. Seen from that top-down angle, it was reminiscent of a teardrop, the narrow end a tapering, postcranial ridge. “We did intercede. But it should never have occurred.”
“What do you mean?”
Alnduul’s mouth, a flexible and unsightly lamprey sucker, pulled back from its extruded position, became a brittle rictus. “We arrived at the star you catalogue as Wolf 424 A two weeks before the arrival window. However, our antimatter stocks were lower than planned and it was necessary to return to the Collective and refuel, which took far longer than it should have. The ship that deposited the attack drones arrived and hid during our absence. The fault was ours.”
Caine raised himself up on his elbows. As he did, the bed—if that’s what it was—rose up to support him. “You could hardly have expected an Arat Kur attack.”
“That does not absolve us of failing to be present. Besides, it was not the Arat Kur who attacked you.”
Riordan frowned. “Alnduul, those drones were Arat Kur. No doubt about it.”
“They were Arat Kur craft, but they were neither provided nor controlled by the Arat Kur themselves.” One of the four reedlike fingers of Alnduul’s left hand gestured toward the deck: a negation. “Both the Arat Kur and your own postwar monitors indicate that all their interstellar craft were accounted for during the two months preceding the attack. This is confirmed by our own intelligence.
“However, hundreds of their drones were arrogated by your government for technical study. They are held in various secret locations. One of those was doubtless the source of the attack drones.”
Riordan’s stomach knotted. “But that means it had to be one of our shift-carriers that ferried them to Wolf 424 A. So it must still be there. It would take at least thirty days to preaccelerate.”
“It is presumed to be hiding. Wolf 424 A and B both boast numerous airless worlds and satellites, as well as asteroids large enough to conceal a dozen human shift-carriers.” Alnduul considered Riordan gravely. “It is distressing to see that members of your own species remain determined to end your life, Caine Riordan. Do you require further rest, or are you ready to move about?”
“I’m ready, but I’m surprised Schoeffel didn’t request your help in trying to find the shift-carrier.”
“She was unwilling to incur either the delay or risk to do so,” Alnduul answered as he led them through the opening iris valve into the curved corridor beyond. “Besides, I could not have complied.”
Riordan stared. “You would have refused?”
The Dornaani’s outer eyelids nictated twice, so forcefully and rapidly that they made an audible snik-snik! “I would have been glad to render aid, but it is beyond my mandate to interfere in what is a purely human matter.”
Riordan glanced over at his host. “But the attackers were in neutral space and you’re a Custodian. A Senior Mentor.”
“I am,” the Dornaani confirmed. “At least for now.”
Caine slowed. “What’s happened?”
Alnduul did not reduce his pace. “Consequences of the failed Convocation, and the invasion of your homeworld, continue to unfold. Even in the Collective.”
“And continue to impact your fortunes, it seems.”
Riordan hoped his friend was correct. “So when do we start?”
“Start?” Alnduul halted before an iris valve so finely crafted that its scalloped sections seemed to be one seamless surface.
“I mean, start our journey.”
The Dornaani’s eyes cycled slowly. “We already have.” He waved a hand at the portal.
The valve dilated and Alnduul advanced into the compartment beyond, gesturing toward what looked like a cross between a couch and a cocoon. “Be seated, if you wish.”
But Riordan was rooted in the doorway, flat-footed, staring.
This larger compartment and its machinery were also streamlined. However, the words “compartment” and “machinery” didn’t really seem to fit. Caine had the sensation of standing inside a slightly recontoured egg, and the machinery was wholly unlike the tightly fitted utilitarian controls that typified a human bridge. It resembled the appointments of a trendy entertainment room: multipurpose furniture; sleek surfaces made of smart materials that adjusted to the posture and position of the crew; dynamically reconfigurable controls and readouts that, when inactive, vanished, leaving the surface featureless.
Only the four startlingly detailed holograms suggested that it was a working bridge. Three were straightforward: a comprehensive display of the current stellar system, the neighborhood of nearby stars, and a constantly rotating view of the hull. The fourth appeared to be a geometric mobile made of bright, shifting geometric shapes.
Alnduul wandered over to that floating collection of interfaced spheres and disks and touched two lightly. The mobile morphed; the spheres transformed into tetrahedrons that spun, bulged, narrowed in response to changes in a slightly tilted disk and a few dancing motes that intermittently linked them. Caine stared at the display, felt like a toddler facing an unfathomable device that adults operated with ease.
Alnduul moved to one of the hybrid couch cocoons. It reconfigured into a saddle-shaped command chair. A tray of controls and readouts emerged from its seamless side. “You look concerned, Caine Riordan.”
Marque of Caine Page 10
