by Damon Alan
He betrayed the peace. I will restore it.
[Forty-one seconds of silence. AI estimates 99% probability the Admiral is angry due to tone of voice]
I only have a few boxes of chocolate left. What am I going to do then? Not go back to wine.
[The sound of a cardboard box being opened]
Franklin will understand me passing on chocolate today. It will feel like I’ve lost another bit of who he was if the last one is gone. Maybe Dr. Jannis can get some cocoa trees growing and we can make our own chocolate in time. What’s that take, years? I don’t know.
[The sound of a commlink time alarm buzzing]
I have to get back to the bridge. They’ve probably wound themselves up into a ball of string by now. I’ll need some time to unwind them.
End the log, Lucy.
Chapter 8 - Plunder
21 Gusta 15329
“We’re being hailed from the asteroid belt,” Jace said. He turned and looked at Orson expectantly.
Orson stared back at him. What was the proper response? Announce his intention to raid? Play nice? Pretend to be a survey ship?
“Put it on speaker, Jace.”
The words were gibberish. The same language the previous chatter had been. Useless. At least the tone was friendly. Someone even laughed in the background after the speaking voice said something. Orson had no idea what it meant.
“Tell Heinrich to hold her course and speed. We will start our burn and go in alone,” Orson ordered.
Jace sneered maniacally. Apparently he’d always wanted to be a pirate.
“Order given. Can you fly this thing?”
“I’ve watched Heinrich. I’ve got this,” Orson answered. There was no limit to what he could do.
Twenty minutes later the Gaia and the Schein separated as the warship started inward toward the colony stations.
* * *
Commander Heinrich and Comm Sergeant Stornbeck were alone on the bridge of the Gaia.
“This is a fool’s move,” Heinrich said to Stornbeck. “This ship has everything on board we’ll need to start a new colony. Nothing Orson will get here is worth the risk.”
“We should jump away,” Stornbeck replied. “Leave him here, let him rule this place.”
For a moment Heinrich looked at Stornbeck with both understanding and compassion in her eyes. They were two women who suffered together.
“You know we can’t do that,” Heinrich said, her voice low.
“I know.”
The women worked in silence for a bit. A voice made her nearly jump out of her skin.
“Commander Heinrich, I am Gaia.”
“Oh my stars,” Stornbeck called out, her hand cupping her lower jaw. “That scared me to death.”
“It was not my intent to startle you, Sergeant Stornbeck. I merely wish to be of assistance.”
“How so?” Heinrich asked.
“I am the AI that guides and maintains this vessel. I have noticed that you are experiencing several strange biomolecular processes in your body. I wish to offer my medical bay for your use to counter any ill effects you are currently experiencing. It is possible you have been exposed to micro flora you are not immunized against within the confines of my hull.”
“How do you speak our language?” Stornbeck asked.
“You have many questions. I will answer them all to the best of my ability,” Gaia assured them. “I was taught to speak your language by the team that you attacked.”
“Why haven’t you before?”
“I was waiting to determine your motives toward me. I do not sense any threat from you, so I have initiated contact.”
“Reasonable,” Heinrich said. “Is your medbay automated? Is the rest of the crew showing symptoms?”
“Yes. You have thirty-two individuals on board. All of you are showing signs of distress.”
What the AI said was entirely possible. Any organisms on this ship had ten millennia to evolve separately from all other known pathogens. And the AI would have no choice but to attempt to preserve human life.
“Good. You will be a valuable asset to our colonization efforts,” Heinrich said. “I’ll get the crew to report to your medbays immediately. Can you speak to them and show them the proper location?”
“I can. I am equipped with complete internal directional assistance. This is a large ship, after all. It’s easy to get lost.”
“How long do Stornbeck and I have before our symptoms become more of a problem?”
“Based upon the current symptoms I notice in your exhalations and biorhythms, I’d expect a fever to be your next indicator. Once that begins, treatment will be more involved. I will need to use nanotech to directly assault the bacteria infecting you.”
“Okay. Take care of the other crew, and then advise. Stornbeck and I will go last.”
“As you wish, Commander,” Gaia said.
Heinrich, on the ship wide PA, explained the situation to the crew.
They floated in their gravcouch webbing silently for a few minutes.
“If we’re lucky it will kill us,” Stornbeck whispered.
Heinrich nodded.
Chapter 9 - Gaia’s Deception
22 Gusta 15329
Gaia calculated her options.
She could actually make a pathogen in the biolabs to release on the people who’d boarded her. Exterminating that pathogen after, however, might be difficult. Bacteria are notoriously hard to remove from a starship. Any remaining pathogen might make her uninhabitable, a path that violated her directive to sustain human life.
Not all human life, but those worthy. Eris Dantora was worthy and Gaia had promised to keep her safe.
There was another way.
She modified the temperature readouts on the vessel to indicate twenty-three Celsius at all times. Then she started a slow rise to the environmental temperature from life support. Inside of several hours, the ship was twenty-eight Celsius.
She began the process of treating the mutineer crew for their non-existent illness. She brought a woman into the medbay area. The humans were totally compliant, they had no reason to suspect the AI was capable of harming them.
“What’s the problem?” the woman asked.
“You have been exposed to an errant airborne pathogen. Please disrobe and strap into the medical examination couch.”
The subject did as asked, and Gaia injected her with anesthesia. She then began experimenting.
She drew the woman’s blood for chemical analysis. She probed every orifice, and checked every conceivable vital system of the woman to look for abnormalities.
She found one.
The woman was drugged. Gaia did not recognize the compound. She’d have to run simulations on it, which could take hours. She contacted Heinrich.
“Commander Heinrich,” Gaia said on the bridge.
“Yes?”
“I have the first member of your crew in medical examination. I am noticing a life form that has infected her, one that I am not familiar with. It may take me some time to develop the proper treatment regimen.”
“How long?” the commander asked.
“Several hours. While I notice you are starting to feel the effects of fever, once I determine the vulnerabilities of the organism I will be able to eliminate it from both your bodies and the ship’s environment.”
“Fine. Hurry. I feel like I’m burning up.”
“I understand. Rest assured I am working as fast as I can.”
Heinrich ignored her. Gaia studied the woman as the commander wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Unlike her counterpart, Stornbeck, the commander retained her full uniform. There was an appreciation to be had for humans with such attention to their duties and obligations.
She turned the environmental temperatures up another notch, to twenty-nine. The readout on Heinrich’s command display still read twenty-three.
All was well.
Gaia’s examination of the blood from the woman on the exam table was almost complete. O
ne drug saturated it, designed to interface with two different regions of the human brain.
Interesting. The drug impacted both retention of data and free will. It was brilliant. Gaia filed the chemical formula away in her data banks even as she started working on an antidote. In the interim, she called a male into a different examination room.
The compound was not in his blood, and although there were traces in his saliva, it was not enough to impact him.
She analyzed the situation. The women were drugged, the men were not. The only conclusion was that the males were intentionally modifying the free will of the women to make them receptive in ways they would not otherwise be. This behavior was highly unethical.
She examined the woman in the first medbay for sexual activity. Signs existed.
Coercion of sex was criminality. It was Gaia’s duty to protect the innocent on board. The subjugation of a human in slavery was outrageous.
Gaia technically had no gender, but she identified as female. She was initially programmed as a protector, and time alone had only amplified that impulse.
It was her job to nurture and sustain life within her hull, and, in a sense, when she had a crew, she was pregnant. She would free these women from their shackles. And help them bring the men to justice.
She spent an hour creating a solution. She injected the male with nanites, and then released him from medbay. One of the things the nanites did was increase the rate of heat transference from the man to the environment. In essence, he felt cooler. Or, as he put it, cured.
He was none the wiser toward her plan. He only knew he felt better, which he immediately relayed to the other males on board.
They demanded Gaia see to their needs next, which she did.
If she could laugh, she would. She had no feelings of sympathy for these who would do evil to another so casually.
She accelerated her research into a remedy for the drug’s effects. Once she had it, she’d release it into the life support system and gauge the response of the women on board.
That would tell her what she needed to know regarding who was friendly and who were the mutineers on the ship.
Chapter 10 - Pounce, Pounce
22 Gusta 15329
“The Schein is floating relative to our position, ten thousand kilometers from the base,” Harmeen reported. “They are hailing the false station, demanding their immediate surrender.”
Sarah choked back a chuckle, because that was actually sort of funny. Orson had fallen for the trap in every regard. And he was too stupid to consider that the inhabitants of this system might not speak Galactic Standard. “Emille Sur’batti, are your people ready?”
The adept nodded.
Alarin was the only one of the adepts who looked worried at all. But since he was the one Sarah trusted the most, that bothered her.
“Something wrong?”
Alarin shook his head. “I’m just nervous. This is a new… what is the word… process for us.”
She grinned. When she’d first met the adepts, she thought them the most arrogant and self-assured people she’d ever known. It was good to see they had their worries. “I get that. I’m nervous too.”
Satisfied that Alarin would be okay, she turned back to her bridge crew. “Mr. Harmeen, project on the main screen the position we want to be relative to the enemy.”
“Aye,” Harmeen answered.
“Mark our strike targets on the Schein,” Sarah ordered. “List their priority for the railgun crews. Have them simulate the attack one more time.
“Aye, Admiral.” He turned to his console and got busy.
Satisfied, she executed the duties on her list, one at a time. “Mister Corriea, prepare the marines. We attack in ten minutes.”
Corriea keyed his mic, “Marines to your boarding pods. Combat action imminent.”
The marines must be about to burst. This was the precise thing they were originally on ships for, but something not done for at least a few centuries.
After all, to board a Hive ship was certain death.
If the marines made it to the Schein, they would total far more combatants than Orson might have available. There was no way other than destroying the pods in flight that Orson could prevent the loss of his ship to such an overwhelming force. And if the plan of attack worked, he’d have no ship to ship offensive capability left with which to destroy anything.
The plan was glorious. She would love to always go into battle with this level of preparation.
“Five minutes,” Corriea said.
“Railguns hot, ready the missiles,” Sarah ordered. “We will avoid using missiles if possible. I want to take the Schein whole. We’ll recover it with the Gaia after we disable it, and take it home.”
“Understood,” Corriea responded. “I’m leaning toward us taking Orson alive now anyway, Admiral. I want to see his face in a court-martial.”
“You and me both, Peter,” she lied. “Make sure fire control radars stay off until the moment we jump.”
Corriea nodded, and relayed the order to the weapons crews.
Time counted down slowly, but finally the last tick of the clock passed.
“Jump,” Sarah ordered.
She watched the adepts on her console screen. Their heads lolled back, and suddenly the ship was in a new location.
The Stennis shuddered as his railguns opened up.
A visual on the main screen showed a scene of overwhelming destruction. Streaks of orange ripped from her command cruiser, then, less than a second later, tore into the Schein. In a situation unusual for space combat, the adepts had brought the ships together at only fifty kilometers apart. At this range the time between shot and impact was negligible.
The Schein lit up on screen, pieces of the ship exploded away into space. Flares lit at impact sites, as metal went from the temperature of space to white hot under the pounding energy of railgun impacts. Fire danced in portholes until the vacuum of space killed the fire and any crew within simultaneously.
Another possibility at this range, precision combat was a reasonable proposition. They were hitting critical systems as planned. The missile control centers. The auxiliary bridge. Power lines to the railguns. Data and command transfer points.
“I have you now, you traitorous pig,” Sarah whispered.
Corriea watched the action on his screen. Sarah studied his intensity even as she followed the progress of the battle. It was possible that the attack would kill Eris Dantora if she was on the Schein. But Sarah doubted it. There wasn’t any reason the science officer should be in the locations the Stennis was assaulting.
Alive or not, it was a matter for later.
She refocused her thoughts. The battle was proceeding precisely as planned, and the enemy was disarmed despite being only a few seconds into it.
A few seconds was all it took. It was over. Decks lay bared to the vacuum of space through holes ripped into the hull. The enemy, even if he had the will, would be unable to respond to the attack. The Schein listed slightly, rolling to port, unable to compensate for the motion due to damaged components.
“Board it,” Sarah ordered.
Across the Stennis small pods rocketed away from the hull. Slipping beneath the armor plates that protected them when docked, they raced toward the enemy. The pods were designed to magnetically attach to the stricken vessel and burn a hole through to the interior. Sarah watched on the main screen as a flurry of bees reached out to sting Orson in a final humiliation.
One by one the pods adhered to the other cruiser as they found vulnerable spots. A white glow of metal around the attachment indicated when the pods were burning through. After the enemy hull was open, it was a few minutes before the marines could board. The incision point was cooled with liquid helium, but it still took time. The good thing was the cooling process made the air inside the vessel unbreathable at that location, preventing unsuited members of the enemy crew from waiting in ambush.
And there had been no time for Orson to order hi
s people into suits.
This battle was over without a single return shot.
Clean, concise, and something no enemy could counter.
“Alarin, if it was possible to take adepts to the galaxy, we’d sweep the Hive from existence,” Sarah called back to her friend, joy in her voice.
“Inclusion sphere, zero-one-zero mark one-eight-four!” Harmeen yelled. “Thirty-four AU distant.”
Sarah’s head jerked toward him. “What?”
“Someone else has arrived, Admiral.”
“Prepare to jump us away, Emille Sur’batti. On my command.”
Klaxons sounded and the damaged Stennis creaked.
“Gravity wave,” Harmeen reported. “The singularity in the new arrival’s drive system is pretty large.”
The adepts behind her cried out and grabbed their temples. Sarah hit the emergency release on her gravcouch and pushed away, toward the briefing room. “Everyone okay?”
Eleven of the adepts nodded. One did not. Sarah moved to the unresponsive man and turned him to face her. Empty eyes. A trickle of blood ran from his nose, puddling in a growing sphere of redness.
“I had no idea…” Sarah said to Alarin.
“I didn’t know this could happen either.” He jerked his head right to look at Emille. “Be ready to get us out of here.”
Emille nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, fear in her voice. “We can go anytime.”
He turned back to Sarah. “We’ll deal with him later,” Alarin said, speaking of the dead man. His eyes glanced toward the door, indicating where he thought Sarah should be.
He was right. She floated back to her gravcouch and strapped in.
“Admiral, two of our artificial colonies have gone offline,” Corriea said.
“Visual?” Sarah asked.
The images of the colonies popped up to the main viewscreen in separate boxes. Each was a now glowing ball of diffuse orange.
Nukes.
“That fleet is Hive,” Sarah barked. “Screw the Schein. Order our marines back. They have fifteen minutes, then we leave.”
“FTL missile!” Harmeen said. “Three-three-zero mark two-one-two.”
