by Sales, Ian
The fleet had left Obok system shortly after the Puncheon’s destruction. Rinharte still had a sour taste in her mouth from that. Perhaps her crew had deserved it—by their actions they had shown they were the enemy. But to flee and be shot in the attempt. It smacked of banditry. There was nothing noble in it.
It remained to be seen how much nobility waited for them in Geneza’s system. Their next destination. Would it prove a trap? Would Rinharte find herself standing here, gazing out on the toposphere, only to watch it change to the deep black of real space —
And destruction to then rain down on Tempest?
She did not expect the Admiral to fail, no matter what the Serpent threw at her. But warships were vulnerable, for all their sophisticated systems and weapons. The only defence against directed-energy was evasion.
Anxiety made her restless. Rinharte had thought she could stand here all day but she could not. She felt powerless and ignorant. She spun about, gave a terse nod to a startled Mate Maganda and strode from the bridge. Down the ramp from the fo’c’sle and then down again to the top boat docks. A pair of pinnaces sat in their berths, prows wide, ready to swallow troops. And beneath those two, another pair. And yet another pair above the bilge. An entire battalion could be squeezed into those six boats. They were Rinharte’s responsibility—delivering them to Geneza’s surface. This was what she now commanded. Not an office of clerks and analysts.
Hands to the dock’s wooden rail, she gazed below her, through a forest of gantries, docks, pipes, hawsers and hoses. All was spick and span. For all that Tempest’s crew had been chosen from Vengeful’s and comprised those the Admiral felt unnecessary to the smooth running of the battlecruiser. For all that, they were Rinharte’s crew now and they were a good crew.
Footsteps rang on the dock. She looked across to the ramp leading down to the hatch onto the troop deck. Black curly hair, and then Marine-Captain Kordelasz himself, hove into view, striding up the ramp with a grin on his face.
“Garrin,” Rinharte said. “And what have you to be so happy about?” The man’s smile was a direct affront to her mood.
Kordelasz laughed. “We’ve found it, Rizbeka,” he replied. He came to a halt before her, swung out a hand and then slapped it down on the rail. “We found it!”
“I wasn’t aware anything was missing.”
“The coffins, the sarcophagi,” he prompted. “Whatever you want to call them.”
“They were never lost, Garrin.” The man could be infuriating. But at least he was taking her mind off their destination.
Another crack as the marine’s hand hit the rail. “Yes! But all those hoses and such—the controls! We couldn’t find the controls. They weren’t in the armoury.”
Rinharte sighed. What was Kordelasz up to? This was not important. The clones were all dead. Whatever had woken them was irrelevant.
“Go on, “ she said. Unless she gave him his head, she’d never hear the end of it.
“Mahzan found it. Down in one of the storerooms on the lowest deck.”
Mahzan. It was a moment before Rinharte remembered the rated. An engineering provisioner. A small, dark and wiry woman at least two decades older than herself.
Kordelasz continued: “She noticed that one of the engineering stores didn’t stretch all the way to the bulkhead. There was a false bulkhead at one end. We broke through it and found a computational engine. A big one.”
“Have you asked Ronry to have a look?” On seeing Kordelasz’s blank look, she explained, “The computational analyst on my watch.”
“Don’t you want to see it?” the marine-captain demanded.
Truth to tell, Rinharte had nothing better to do. Mate Maganda was on watch and had everything in hand.
Pretending to an enthusiasm she did not feel, Rinhart followed Marine-Captain Kordelasz from the dock and onto the troop-deck. They strode across it, between the barracks blocks in which troopers of the Winter Rangers lay or sat at ease, and marched down the ramp leading to officers’ country. The ramp debouched into a small square area. The mess table had been folded away and the armchairs brought out from their storages. All of the cabin doors opening into the area were shut.
Kordelasz turned about. Behind the ramp, a hatch led into Tempest’s engineering areas. He led Rinharte through the hatch, carefully securing it after her. Faint thuds and rumbles filtered down to this deck from the toroids, drive-tubes and associated mechanism above. On this deck, however, were only storerooms, workshops and a gunroom for the enginemen, wipers, fuelmen and storesmen.
Down another ladder, and onto the lowest deck of the troop-transport. Down here, the gangway was narrow, the bare steel walls and low lighting oppressive. Something felt greasy underfoot and Rinharte put a hand to the bulkhead to steady herself. She felt moisture against her palm and grimaced. Atmospheres aboard ships were often in danger of becoming too arid and so life support introduced some humidity. Down here on the lower decks it precipitated out, down here where silent storerooms and dark empty spaces were the only insulation against cold space.
“This one,” said Kordelasz, standing aside and ushering the captain into a chamber which was neither empty nor dark.
The storeroom was about twenty feet long and ten feet wide. Or rather, it had been. An area of the far bulkhead had been crudely removed, revealing a small room a further five feet deep. Rinharte marched forward, ignoring the boxes piled to either side and secured under ropes tied to cleats in the decking.
Mahzan stood just inside the secret room, in the process of clamping a second light-panel to the bulkhead. She stepped back, bent down and picked up a narrow-gauge hose from by her feet and plugged it into the light-panel. A faint hum ensued and the panel gave off a yellow glow. The rated fiddled with a pair of knobs on the panel’s edge and the light whitened and grew harder and brighter.
Beneath the harsh light of the two panels, the computational engine sat silent and immobile. Its rods and gears were quiescent, its hoses slack. It was the size of a large table—three feet in height, eight feet wide and four feet long. It was much larger than the one in Tempest’s foc’scle.
“So?” asked Kordelasz.
“It’s… big,” Rinharte replied. She had some familiarity with such engines—they were a vital tool in Intelligence. Aboard Vengeful, her analysts had relied on a pair of small desktop models. For more complex analyses, Rinharte had been given use of the battlecruiser’s main computational engine.
“I’ve seen bigger,” Kordelasz replied.
“Not aboard a troop-transport, you haven’t. I’ve not seen an engine this powerful on anything smaller than a cruiser.” She shook her head in wonder. “And it was just to control the sarcophagi?”
Surely not. This was far too powerful for such a menial task. There had been twenty catalfalques aboard Tempest, two to a cabin. Maintaining their contents—a clone in each—was a complex task, yes. But not so complex as to require a computational engine of this size.
“Are you sure all these —” She threw out a hand and indicated the hoses snaking across the decking, and disappearing through the bulkheads to for’ard, port and starboard—“all lead to the sarcophagi? And nowhere else?”
“Where else would they lead?” Kordelasz scoffed.
“I don’t know.” She swore under her breath. The more she learnt about Tempest, the more puzzles which needed solving.
A thought occurred to her. “Guns,” she said.
And then: “Get Silnik down here.”
She lifted a booted foot and slammed it down on the decking. “What’s under here, Mahzan?”
“Bilges, ma’am,” said the rated.
“And under the bilges?”
Mahzan frowned, not understanding. “That’s the keel, ma’am. Nothing under that but space.”
Rinharte nodded, then gestured for Mahzan to fetch Petty Officer Silnik. The rated hurried from the storeroom.
The questions had been for Kordelasz’s ben
efit. Rinharte turned to the marine-captain. “I’ve seen engines similar to this used for fire control. That doesn’t mean this one is, but…”
“You think there’s a gun on this tub?” asked Kordelasz in disbelief. “Where? Where could you hide something as big as a main gun?”
Before Rinharte could reply, movement at the far end of the storeroom caught her attention. She looked up, past Kordelasz, and saw two figures in navy coveralls approaching. Mahzan and Leading Petty Officer Silnik, Tempest’s Engineering Chief.
Rinharte beckoned him to her. “Chief,” she explained, “I need some of your carpenters and artificers. I want someone down in the keel and another few outside the hull.”
Silnik blinked but said nothing.
“I think there’s a gun down there,” she explained.
He gazed at her, no expression on his face, but she could guess what he was thinking.
“This engine.” She gestured at the device behind her. “It’s too big for just the sarcophagi. I think it’s also used for fire control.”
“There’ll be a rangefinder somewhere then, ma’am,” Silnik said.
Now it was Rinharte’s turn to stare at the petty officer. “Of course. Yes, there will be.” She turned to the female rated. “Mahzan, check all the other storerooms on this deck. There might be another hidden chamber.”
Rinharte laughed in disbelief. She gazed down at an open hatch in the decking before her. In the deep cavity revealed, a tube some two feet in diameter stretched from left to right, from aft to prow. The tube was constructed of curved rectangular plates, identifiable as chargers from the complex filigree of brass laid across each of them.
“They put a main gun in a troop-transport,” she said, still finding it hard to credit her eyes. “Why in heavens would they do something like that?”
“Bit daft, if you ask me, ma’am,” said Silnik. He stood on the other side of the hole in the deck. “One shot from this’ll take all the output from the power toroids. We’d be dead in space afterwards.”
“One shot is all you need,” pointed out Kordelasz. He too appeared astounded by their discovery. “No one expects a tub like this to carry a main gun. You can get in close and make sure you destroy your target.”
“It’s a bit big for an assassin’s weapon,” replied Rinharte.
The marine-captain laughed. “That it is.” He looked up and grinned. “Are we going to use it?”
Rinharte was shocked. “Dear Lords, no. As Mr Silnik said, we’d be dead in space if we did. I’d like to survive the upcoming battle in one piece.”
She turned about and strode along the gangway. At its end, a small square hatch set in the forward bulkhead gave access to the bilges beneath the pinnace docks. Framed in the opening, hands to either jamb, body stretched out behind her, floated Mahzan. Rinharte was used to such sights: areas of gravity beside areas of no gravity.
“Nothing down here, ma’am,” the rated said. She let go with one hand, reached back and scratched at her rear.
She was also filthy, smeared with grease and soot. Rinharte wondered if she had been rolling in the dirt—and then wondered how that was possible in zero gravity.
“Any ideas?” asked Rinharte. They had searched the lowest deck from stern to bow looking for the rangefinder and found nothing.
“Most likely up top,” Mahzan pointed out.
“Romi has searched every square inch of the fo’c’sle. There’s nothing hidden there. Not even a telescope in the station-keeping turret.”
Mahzan shrugged, one hand still to the hatch coaming. “If it’s not down here, ma’am, it’ll be up there somewhere. We just got to look harder.”
Abruptly, the rated tucked her legs up under her and shot her feet forward. Both hands now to the coaming, she unbent and arched through the hatchway feet-first. She landed beside Rinharte, stumbled a moment, then straightened and grinned impertinently.
“I got an idea where,” she said. “Ma’am.”
She headed back down the gangway.
Rinharte strode after her. Kordelasz joined her as she passed him, as did Leading Petty Officer Silnick. Mahzan led them back into officer country, up the ramp onto the troop-deck and then to the ladder leading up the forward bulkhead. She began to climb.
“Ma’am,” she explained as she led the way, “we looked in all the places where you’d hide something, but where’s always the best hiding place?”
“I don’t know, Ms Mahzan,” Rinharte replied patiently. Those who worked in the engineering spaces were known throughout the Navy as slightly peculiar. Perhaps it was due to spending so much time around vast machines which gave out strange unknowable vibrations and radiations.
Mahzan pointed straight up. “There, ma’am,” she said. She glanced back and down past her shoulder at Rinharte. “That’s the hull up there, the ceiling is the hull. We know that, so we’d not look up there.”
“For good reason,” Rinharte pointed out. “The hull is only inches thick. There’s no room to hide a rangefinder.”
“Ah, but,” replied Mahzan mysteriously.
They had reached the top of the ladder and were now on the central catwalk which led fore to aft beneath the roof of the troop-deck. Rinharte remembered the clone which had escaped. They had chased it up to here. Once cornered, he had uttered several gnomic remarks and then deliberately killed himself on a corner of the armoury below.
And killed himself on a corner of the armoury.
The four of them reached the aft-end of the catwalk. Mahzan slapped a palm against the bulkhead.
“Know what’s on the other side of this, ma’am?” Mahzan asked.
“Engineering. Power toroids, the topologic drive.”
“Get on with it, Mahzan,” snapped Silnik.
The rated nodded. “Machinery, ma’am, aye. Lots of hiding places. The rangefinder’ll be around here somewhere.” She began rapping the metal with her knuckles, moving her fist about as if looking for a hollow panel.
Amused, Rinharte watched her. She glanced across at Kordelasz and saw that he was following Mahzan’s hunt with eagerness. Ridiculous. The entire bulkhead was inches-thick metal. A hatch would give back exactly the same sound.
Now Mahzan was sweeping a palm flat across the metal, as if making magic passes. There was nothing mysterious or sorcerous in engineering. Rinharte had spent time in the department as a midshipman. Yes, the theory behind chargers and the topologic drive remained unknown. But the rest of it was science, not superstition.
“Aha!” said Kordelasz.
Rinharte blinked. She had not been concentrating. She focused on Mahzan. The rated had actually discovered a hidden panel. Magic, indeed. She had it open and poked about in its interior with a screwdriver.
Moments later, a section of the bulkhead before them clicked and moved forward an inch. Mahzan grabbed it and pulled. A hatch. It swung smoothly to one side.
Revealed was a tiny cramped chamber. Circular, half of it containing machinery, with three stools before glasses and periscopes. A barbette. There were narrow viewing slits before each of the stools. At the moment, they showed only metal. The barbette must rise above the hull.
And it must rotate too—its workings were hidden among the machinery in the engine room. Once the turret had been raised, the director and spotters inside would have an excellent view of Tempest’s field of fire.
She wondered if the clone which had woken and escaped had known of the fire control chamber. He had climbed up here, onto the catwalk. She thought it unlikely.
“Oh well done, Mahzan,” said Kordelasz, clearly impressed.
Rinharte said, “Ms Mahzan, you’re in charge of the gun. If there’s anyone you need, ask Mr Silnik.”
The rated nodded. “Might need another in fire control, ma’am. Can’t do it with one.”
“She can have one of my wipers,” Silnik told Rinharte.
“Good. That’s settled. Tell Mate Maganda when you’ve got ev
erything sorted.”
She turned to go and strode a few yards along the catwalk. Turning back, she looked directly at Mahzan, nodded and said, “Good work.”
She continued on her way. She shook her head in wonder.
Dear Lords. Her troop-transport had a main gun.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Forty-six moons and moonlets swung in stately procession about the Geneza system’s solitary gas giant, Piorun. They saw few visitors—some pilgrims, perhaps, heading for the Henotic holy city of Zolima on Geneza. The moons did not worry about their solitude. Nothing could disturb them.
Not even the appearance of a fleet of warships.
Ormuz looked across the conning-tower well and saw the Admiral on the Captain’s Bridge, her smooth skull turned away from him as she spoke to someone on the comms-console. He wanted to be beside her but she had made her thoughts on that quite clear. The fleet would soon be entering a potentially hostile system. She did not want him getting in her way.
So he had been banished to the Pilothouse.
He sighed and turned away. There was not much to see ahead. Or above his head, for that matter. Nothing but grey. An oppressive and formless grey which fooled the eye into thinking the mullioned glass roof was no more than an inch or two above his crown. He felt briefly tempted to put up a hand to test the truth of the illusion.
“How long?” he asked the coxswain, Mate Sharin.
“No more than five minutes, my lord.”
There was no reason for him to stay here. He could go to his cabin. Or perhaps find Varä and challenge him to sword practice. Certainly, there were other places aboard Vengeful where he could find something interesting to do. He strolled to the conning-tower well, put his hands to the railing and gazed down, studiously ignoring the Captain’s Bridge above him. There was little enough to see. People were busy in their departments and the gallery about the well on each deck was empty. The hissing and clattering of computational engines, the gentle lapping of conversation, the occasional barked order drifted up to him. He turned about and rested his rear against the wooden rail. Arms crossed, he watched as the Pilothouse crew made preparations to leave the toposphere…
