Aaron checked the navigation map. It seemed like half of it was flashing red. Crimson dots continued to stream forth from the larger ships, over a hundred now, and more coming by the microslice.
“Perhaps we can negotiate. We have valuable technology to offer—” Xander started to answer.
“There will be no negotiation. You tried to eradicate us and we’re here to return the favor. Tell that to the Doctor, tell that to the defectors who betrayed us. We are coming and there is nothing you can do to stop us. Prepare for boarding.” The commander’s voice rang in Aaron’s ears as the audio cut out.
A sea of red swarmed the navigation screen. The Developers stared blankly at the impending destruction it represented.
“Sentinel Orin has not changed,” Cyrith commented. “Brute force is the only language he understands. But he knows what this space station is capable of. He will do everything possible to see we do not clear the atmosphere.” For the first time since Aaron had known Cyrith, his face looked noticeably troubled. He cast his brooding gaze towards Aaron. Perhaps it was only a coincidence, but the timing made it seem as if Cyrith blamed Aaron somehow for what was unfolding.
“What can we do to help?” Aaron repeated his earlier question.
But Cyrith’s mind was paralyzed by indecision. He was a researcher. He had no way of knowing what to do in a situation like this. His expression darkened with each passing moment.
“Let’s go,” Aaron told Donovan. “We need to get the chronotrace working. If we could map their ship we could back trace their communications and security protocols, jam their signals, and find out how to drain their ships’ power.”
“You go on without me. I’ll stay here. It would only be a waste of time.”
“But there’s nothing for us to do here. Do you want to just sit here and watch the Delegation tear the ship apart?”
Donovan’s mind withdrew. His eyes locked on to the various view screens, consuming the incoming data with grim fascination. Aaron never felt more distant from his friend than at that moment.
Aaron understood Donovan’s response. It was a hopeless plan after all, but the alternative was even more hopeless. The crash of the Nebula, the Delegation attack, their failure to construct the chronotrace in time, everything was falling apart. He had to do something.
Aaron turned and left, stepping onto the black lev disc waiting outside the door. At least some things were still in order aboard the ship. For now.
As the circle took off, he wondered whether or not he’d have time to do what he was planning and whether the Collective stood any chance at surviving this attack even if he succeeded.
Aaron floated through the lengthy metal corridors as fast as the disc would go, his silver robe plastered against his skin. Why did they have to put the lab on the outer rim of the ship? Even though the bridge was centrally located, it took a few microslices to get to where he was going. At least there was no other traffic to slow him down. The containment teams were on the opposite side of the ship, closer to the direction from which the Delegation approached.
He clung to the possibility of the chronotrace as the last hope of the Collective. If only the Nebula could hold out long enough for him to find a way to get it working, they might be able to find a way to disable the Delegation ships.
Aaron connected his mind to the tactical screens back on the bridge. The Delegation venators were over three quarters of the way to the Nebula by now. They may have been numerous, but they were only about half the length of a lancer and had short, broad wings. Their cockpits were covered by rectangular, tinted windows. Maybe they were only drones and the boarding threat was a bluff.
His stomach fluttered. At this point he wasn’t sure what he was more anxious about, the impending attack, or the impossibility of fixing the chronotrace in time.
The moment he arrived at the lab, the hallway emergency lighting flashed on, the crimson hue signaling that the ship was under attack. The locus energy shields surrounding the ship would hold off the venators for a while, but they would not hold up forever.
He checked the view from the bridge again, expecting to see the Nebula under fire, but it wasn’t. Roughly a third of the venators had met the Collective fleet in the air and chosen to engage it. They exchanged locus pulser and disruptor fire, lighting up the dust filled air with white and yellow energy beams. But that wasn’t what had sounded the alarm. It was the more than one hundred venators who had simply flown around or past the Collective forces and landed on the Nebula’ hull. They did not opened fire on the space station. Instead, they landed on the invisible shield surrounding the ship. Right before making contact with the shield, the ships morphed. Their panels and wings shifted in place, reconfiguring themselves into enormous, metallic exoskeletons, with large locus pulse cannons mounted on one arm and enormous blue energy blades springing forth from the other.
Aaron’s skin bristled in fear.
“What are those?” he queried the Nebula’s esolace.
Venators, came the answer. A hybrid short range space craft combined with an oversized armatus battle suit. A one-man craft equally capable of securing land targets or harassing airborne enemies. Originally created by Factor Ten forces and then appropriated for use by the Delegation in the Terminus Conflict where they were used almost exclusively by elite, escalon attack forces.
The facts blazed through Aaron’s mind as the door whisked open. He stepped inside the lab. He set the chronotrace into its seating on top of the celerium column.
Various images from the bridge screens flashed before him. The venator battle suits were using their cross stream blades to cut through the Nebula’s shields. Wherever they did, glowing gashes opened up, suspended in midair like floating green scars. The venators jumped through the openings, landing on the hull and repeating the procedure, this time opening a gash in the fuselage.
With that tactic, they were going to take control of the ship sooner than he thought.
Aaron hurriedly instructed the inert chronotrace to power up. This time he did not debate within himself about the proper course to take to run his experiment. There was only one choice which made any sense at this point, the only one they had not tried.
He accessed the logs and referenced the sub-rational algorithm Gavin had detailed there, insetting this routine into the chronotrace’s temporal sequencing module. It was not even that much of a change, just a small shift in the logic, a minuscule part of the overall design, really. It should not have made any difference by conventional wisdom and all known laws of science, but Aaron didn’t care. What good were the laws of science when an army of attack ships was bearing down on you?
With the alternate algorithm in place, Aaron sent a mental command to the device to initiate the trace. The sound of dozens of booted feet running past the door filled the lab as the chronotrace began to glow. A check of the security logs showed that squads of somatarchs were being sent to deal with the venators who had breached the hull. They were not entering at a single point, as expected, but in every section of the ship.
The chronotrace scattered light all around Aaron as it completed the initial scan. Now came the real test. All he wanted to see was whether it would play back his presence in the room. The entire sequence would take only a fraction of a microslice, but, if successful, it might change everything in this battle.
The projection commenced, spinning time in reverse. He waited, and waited, holding his breath and then… his hands and legs started to blur. He spun around and stood face to face with a mirror image of himself. The inverted echoes of the somatarchs swept past the lab backwards. His copy backed out through the open door and stepped onto the black disc outside.
The trace had worked! The new algorithm had made zoetic mapping possible and the answer had been right there in Gavin’s notes the whole time. He cursed his foolishness, but this was no time to wallow in past failures. He did not know how much time he had left.
His skin tingling in anticipation, he sped up th
e trace and instructed the chronotrace to shift the scan location so he could find out what was happening on the Delegation ships. As the trace unfolded, a strange sensation washed over him. It wasn’t just the newness of this technology, as unfamiliar as it was, but the nagging suspicion that the venators boarding the Nebula were not the biggest threat they would have to face.
Thirty-Three
Stow Away
Two Delegation soldiers stepped over the bodies of the fallen somatarchs. The shredded remains of a dozen more lay behind them, victims of a locus pulse grenade which had ripped through them like ten thousand tiny cutters shooting out from the point of detonation. The scrap metal from several contingency probes lay mixed in with the bodies.
The remains of the Delegation forces were less conspicuous. Four black and gray uniforms and an equal number of helmets lay in disarray on the floor at the edge of the mangled clump of dead somatarchs. A dozen silvery oscillathe pistols, their sheen now tarnished by spattered blood, told the story of how the soldiers had met their end.
“Sentinel Orin, we’ve secured the hallway leading to the bridge,” said one of the soldiers. His face was hidden behind the dark visor covering the front of his helmet.
Orin’s audio response came inside his headgear, as clear as if he’d been standing right next to the soldier. “Excellent. Hold that position. We’ll all rush the bridge together on my command. They won’t stand a chance.”
“Affirmative,” replied the soldier, disconnecting from his audio link with the commander.
“So we’re just supposed to sit here and hope they don’t send anything more at us? Just the two of us,” said the other soldier in the hallway. He was a little shorter than the first, but in their uniforms they were otherwise identical.
“Sounds about right,” his companion answered.
The two men separated and took a knee beside either wall.
The smaller soldier grunted inside his helmet. “Casper, you saw what those whispering weapons did to our team. Whatever they are, they can kill escalons. We never lose men in close combat and we’ve already lost half of the ones who breached the hull.” Despite his concern, it didn’t sound like he cared as much about the lost lives as he did about the success of the mission.
“The other four teams are still mostly intact,” Casper said. “And we know how to fight them now, just don’t engage them up close. The superior range of our pulsers should give us the other advantage. The others won’t make the same mistake we did.”
The other soldier snorted into his mask. “I just hope they don’t empty out the body farm on us. Those things we fought, they looked human, but they weren’t, you know? Never saw anything like that.”
“These lab coats are all freaks if you ask me,” Casper said.
“You think the Doctor is still in charge?” asked the other man.
“I hope so. His day has been a long time coming.”
Another voice, not belonging to the sentinel, or to either of the two men in the hallway burst into their headsets.
“We’re nearly finished mopping up the Deliverance fleet. All we really have left is the praxis,” the new voice reported.
“Keep up the hurt,” Sentinel Orin’s voice came over the audio. “We’ll have the bridge secured soon before they even clear the atmosphere. Send word when you’ve zeroed out the Deliverance fleet.”
“I look forward to joining you back on the Nebula,” the new voice informed them.
“It’s a glorious day for the Delegation!” Sentinel Orin declared.
At that point Aaron paused the trace. The two soldiers froze where they were, facing the door which led to the Command Center. The processing for the short sequence he had just observed had taken less than two microslices. There was no point in continuing further. He had what he sought. It was time to put it into action.
“Cyrith, I’ve discovered the encryption key the Delegation is using for their communication.” Aaron sent the message over the Developer channel.
Xander’s mind responded back instead. “They weren’t communicating over a secure audio channel?”
“Of course they were, but I decoded it using the chronotrace—I’ve got it working! And another thing, Xander, what are we doing about the units converging on the bridge? You need to send a team to—”
Xander seemed almost angered by Aaron’s report. “What team? The assessors went with the fleet. And the venator soldiers have taken out most of the somatarchs we had on board. We’re totally outmanned. I recalled a unit of ten to the bridge once we got boarded and I’ve ordered another three units to head to the bridge, but they will probably get slaughtered on their way. The escalons are too smart for them.”
“But what about the omniclast? We’ve almost broken the atmosphere, haven’t we?”
“It doesn’t matter. The weapon still has to charge once we get into space. The bridge will never hold out that long.” Xander’s thoughts were harried, scattered, disordered. “Jamming their communications now would be pointless. The Nebula is overrun.”
Aaron stood for a long time without moving, Xander’s panic spreading through him like an infection. This paralysis of indecision might have gone on for even longer had it not been for the sound of soft footsteps at the door.
His muscles tensed. It wasn’t a somatarch, they never moved with that level of subtlety. It had to be one of the soldiers. He looked around the lab for anything he could use to defend himself. He grabbed the first suitable thing he found, a metal canister stored on a nearby shelf and lifted it with shaking hands. It had a nice heft to it, but he doubted it would be enough to take out a soldier in body armor.
A yellow glow appeared on the surface of the door, as if it were being heated at a single point. A radiant sliver poked through the metal at that point. It quickly traced a large hole in the door, moving through the thick metal like it wasn’t there. The circle complete, the inner part of the door toppled to the floor revealing a man wearing a dust-covered jacket and weathered pants. His face was nondescript, but the knowing glint in his eyes gave him away. It was the defector Gavin.
Gavin extinguished his cutter blade.
“Thank goodness. I finally found you,” he said.
Aaron drew back from him, raising the canister above his head.
“Don’t come any closer. I’ll hit you with this, I promise I will.” Though he looked like any other scientist, anyone who could escape the Collective was as deadly as the Delegation soldiers who had boarded the ship. But what was he doing on the Nebula? Had he joined the Delegation somehow? Maybe he had been working for them all along.
Aaron connected his mind to the security channel to warn the bridge, maybe even call for a contingent of somatarchs, but the channel was down. His mind scrambled to connect to any of the other channels. They were all down. The Nebula’s esolace had vanished and that could mean only one thing: the Delegation must already be in control of the bridge. Aaron was on his own.
“I know you don’t remember me.” Gavin raised his hands non-threateningly and yet stepping across the threshold. Aaron thought he caught a white shimmer wash over him, but it may have simply been a trick of the light as Gavin passed from the corridor into the lab.
Aaron waved the canister in front of him. “I’ve called security. They’ll be here in less than a microslice,” he bluffed.
“I’m a memorant. You should know you can’t get away with lying to someone like me,” Gavin said. “Besides, even if I wasn’t, I’ve got this.” Here he pulled a chronotrace from a bag he wore slung across his shoulder. It was slightly smaller than the one Aaron had built, but otherwise very similar.
So that’s how he found me.
He had to get out of here. But with Gavin standing right smack in the middle of the door there was no way around him. Aaron began to slide forward surreptitiously in the hope of getting close enough to knock his adversary down and then sprint away before he had a chance to get up.
“I know why you’re here, I’ve se
en the data on you.” Aaron continue forward cautiously. “You’re trying to destroy this ship and eliminate the Collective.”
“Actually, I think the Delegation is doing just fine on that front. I’m here for you.”
Aaron halted, caught off guard by the unexpectedness of Gavin’s statement.
“Me? What do you want with me?” he asked.
“I’ve come to rescue you, the same way you rescued me. This is not where you belong. This is not who you are. They’ve remapped you. Aaron isn’t your real name. It’s—”
“You expect me to believe you—a traitor to the Collective?” Aaron cut him off, risking another step forward. Why hadn’t Gavin reacted to his advances? Surely as a memorant he must have guessed Aaron’s intentions.
Gavin shoved the chronotrace back in the bag and pulled out a vial of remin fluid instead. The green liquid glowed through the edges of his fingers as he stretched out his hand, offering the container to Aaron.
“I didn’t expect you to believe me. Which is why I brought this.” Now Gavin took a step forward.
“I’m sure it’s laced with neural block to knock me unconscious. You can keep it,” Aaron said.
“It wouldn’t make any difference if it was. You can’t be knocked out that way.” Gavin shoved the vial back in his bag and took another step. Only three or four steps separated them now.
Aaron tensed, but he couldn’t hurl the canister yet. He wanted to be sure he didn’t miss. He would only get one shot.
Gavin picked up one of the metal trays off a lab table, grasping it with both hands. “The only thing that works is blunt force trauma. I came here to save you. Even if I have to hurt you to do it.”
Aaron nodded grimly. He would have expected no less from someone like Gavin. The only surprise was that Gavin had gone through the pretense of wanting to help him first.
The Chronotrace Sequence- The Complete Box Set Page 95
