by Damon Alan
“Why would they come here and not Torgard?” Salla asked.
“It depends if they know who wiped out their last incursions,” Eislen said. “If they know about us, they’re coming here. If they still think Torgard is the regional capital, they’re headed there.”
“We’ll need to know that,” the priestess said. “My church will need to evacuate the children if they’re coming here.”
“Nothing of this leaves this room, woman. You understand?” Eislen asked the healer.
Her face lit up with surprise and shock at the tone of his voice, but then she rapidly nodded.
Eislen softened his manner. None of this was her fault. “I will find out which road they took. And if they’re coming here, you will be told and you can get the children out of town, as well as their mothers.”
The priestess smiled. Apparently that was what mattered to her. But she was a priestess of Em’Jalai, so it made sense.
Eislen rested his hand on Elvanik’s good shoulder. “Stay here, look after Salla. I’m taking a few adepts and we’ll go scout this out.”
“No,” Salla protested. “You’re needed here in case they’re coming this way.”
Eislen embraced her tight, her head rested on his chest. “If they’re coming this way, I will not be able to stop them. But I can give everyone here enough warning to flee north toward Antecar. I think Edolhirr, master of that nation, is fair enough he will take our people in.”
“We can evacuate and come back after they’re gone. We can rebuild. We can’t bring back the dead,” she argued. “And I’m talking about you.”
Eyes shut, he imagined the first day he’d met her for a moment. Their joy at realizing they weren’t the only one left from Kampana. And they’d rebuilt it together. “You’re right. We can rebuild. But I promised Alarin I’d protect the Eastlands. Himalland can’t do as they please here. This is our land. And if I can’t defend it, I think Edolhirr might.
“Men are stubborn about such things,” Salla complained.
The priestess huffed, and Eislen looked at her again. She raised her eyebrows and poured a liquid on the leaves stuck to Elvanik’s arm.
Elvanik grinned weakly. “They don’t seem to know we do it all for them.”
They did it all for their families, their neighbors, their community. If Himalland thought they could violate that, dominate it, bend it to their will… well that wasn’t why Eislen settled here. That wasn’t the will of the gods. And Eislen would have none of it.
“I’ll need warm clothes,” he said, the discussion over. He was going to go scout out the army. And if it was coming to Kampana, he’d delay it if he had to in order to give the village time to evacuate.
“You’re a stubborn fool, Eislen of Kampana,” Salla said, hurt in her voice.
Eislen paused laying warm furs on the bed. “You would make any man a fool if it meant you were safe,” he replied. “You and that child in you.”
She stared at him, unhappy that she couldn’t dissuade him from leaving.
“Be ready to leave with little warning. Pack warm. Pack food.”
She stepped next to him and put her arms around his waist, then lay her head on his shoulder. “If anything happens to you, I will never be warm again.”
“Now you know how I feel about you,” he said, softly. “And I have the power to make sure you’re safe. Do you think I could sit idly by and let you be destroyed by animals?”
“No.”
He’d won the argument. “Then it’s settled.”
Her tears gave him no comfort in his victory.
Chapter 33 - Metamorphosis
17 Jand 15330
Heinrich was nervous. She’d put herself into the task the admiral had given her. In every way. At the moment she was standing in the airlock to the new hangar bay, waiting for a shuttle to arrive.
Out of the incomplete hangar doors she could see the Fyurigan, connected to the Stennis via power cables and data strands.
This was the most massive overhaul she’d ever seen outside of a drydock, but there wasn’t one of those here. The gigantic engineering vessel would have to suffice.
In moments Admiral Dayson would be docking. It would be her first inspection of the progress that Heinrich was making. Which was substantial. The engineers of the fleet had big dreams. And the ship to make them happen.
Heinrich was a bit surprised by the professionalism of the crew. Nobody had blamed her for the Hinden, at least not to her face. She’d had a few strange looks in the officer’s mess, but she’d quelled those quickly. Whatever the feelings under the surface, nobody could argue with the results of the transformation she was overseeing.
The Stennis was no longer just a cruiser. There was a massive midsection that had housed the FTL drive core, useless once the singularity was ejected. But not anymore. The old ship was now the most massive carrier Heinrich knew of. And while the fleet didn’t have the grappler engines with which to build new grapplers and G-Ks, not all space superiority fighters had the versatile engines.
The Fyurigan’s factory modules were turning out variants of the fighters Heinrich needed to make her renovated ship sting like a proper warship. It was interesting how quickly she’d taken to the Stennis. He had a presence, an aura of age and a sense that he’d survive until the last. With the right armament, Heinrich didn’t see why not. Space fighters with small fusion engines and vectored thrust, while not as good as grapplers in normal circumstances, were something that might give them an edge. And they could stuff a hundred or so into the ship, as the tiny fighters were much smaller than grapplers.
The fighters were Peter Corriea’s design. They had two seats. One of which would be occupied by adepts when they were fully trained and able to jump as needed.
Emille Sur’batti, who Heinrich hadn’t officially met yet, had discovered how to do it, and now she would be the core of the process. A new fighter control center being built on the front of the Stennis would work directly with the command bridge to direct the adepts to the enemy. The admiral would direct the fighters in regard to targets, the adept command structure would get them there. Some of the new units were being built as rapid strike bombers. They’d jump in, launch nuclear missiles at close range, then jump away before the enemy could strike them.
Missiles were in short supply. The Oasis system wasn’t exactly dripping with uranium, which meant building a breeder reactor to produce plutonium cores for the fusion bombs.
A dirty process, unlike the miniaturized laser ignition systems of modern weapons, but that technology was beyond the tools at hand.
Fission pumped fusion it would be.
Her mind snapped back to the present as a shuttle sat down on the unpainted deck of the hangar bay. Having been lost in thought, Heinrich startled as its magnetic feet clanged lightly as they clamped to the hull.
A few minutes slipped by as the shuttle’s passengers passed through the shuttle airlock into the bay. The lieutenant next to Heinrich opened the outer door of the shuttle bay’s ship access airlock, and the guests filed in. Once inside, the suited face of Admiral Dayson smiled at Heinrich.
The admiral pressed her helmet into contact with Heinrich’s, so they could speak. “You’ve made remarkable progress, Inez.”
The use of the her first name pushed Heinrich a bit off balance. “Yes sir, admiral. We’re ahead of schedule in most regards. But lacking in some critical components. Fiber optic cables. Uranium. He3, although that will be fixed soon. The dark side of Skuld is fairly rich in it. We need titanium, magnesium, and several other rarer metals. This system isn’t as metal rich as we’d like.”
“I’ve read your reports. I’m not here for the walk through of the process. I want to see what you’ve done to my ship.”
The admiral’s tone was friendly. Which might be a good sign she’d trust Heinrich to get this overhaul done without too much interference. “I’ll be happy to show you around.”
The airlock cycle was complete, and they stepped in
to the main corridor of the front central spar. As the airlock’s inner door closed behind them, everyone took their helmets off.
“I hear you’re right in there with the worker bees,” Dayson said.
“That way I know how it all works.”
“And now you can show me. Have you found a work around to finally get the starboard railguns online?”
“We don’t have the superconductors we need. But we’ve come up with a compromise I think you’ll like,” Heinrich said. “This way, admiral.”
She led her commander through the massive vessel until they arrived at the hangar control center.
“This is new,” Dayson said. “And it’s a mess.”
“Yes sir, it is,” Heinrich agreed. “But not for long. Another six months or so and this ship will be humming.”
“That’s fast,” the admiral said, nodding. “I’ll hold you to it.”
Heinrich hesitated a moment before she explained her method to speed up the process. “We are salvaging the wreck of the Hinden, and the equipment we’re recovering is dramatically speeding up the refit.”
Sarah Dayson stared at her for a moment in uncomfortable silence. The woman’s face was unreadable.
Finally, after an uneasy fifteen seconds, the admiral spoke. “I will speak to my XO in private. Everyone else out.”
Half a dozen officers left the room with stunned looks. Dayson’s eyes followed them as they left, before turning back toward Heinrich. “Have you recovered bodies?”
“Over four hundred,” she answered. “They’re being stored in the morgue on the Fyurigan.”
“That ship is a war grave. Why didn’t you run this past me before you made this decision?”
“Because you might have said no. For political reasons.”
Dayson exhaled quickly, like she was trying to stifle anger. “You were protecting me. I’m sure it occurred to you that people might hold this decision against you, since some aren’t going to understand how much under Orson’s control you were.”
“I actually got quite a bit of support for the idea.”
“You did?” the admiral asked.
“I explained my idea to Captain Vargas, and he thought it a necessary evil. He gave the order publicly, but there is a classified record pointing to me as the origination point for the salvage.”
“And the crewmen are taking it well? The recovery team?”
“Surprisingly so. Vargas, myself, and our command crews have been pointing out that the equipment from the Hinden will prevent the Stennis from becoming a war grave as well. Since most of the crewmen performing the refit will be manning this ship once it’s operational again…”
“They see the benefit,” Dayson finished. “Well, you have my approval. I thought there might be more trouble with the idea, but it looks like you have it handled. What have you recovered?”
“The ship’s aft section blew into hundreds of pieces. The front two thirds, however, survived remarkably intact considering the hits you took,” Heinrich said, blushing slightly. “We’ve recovered intact missiles, computer systems, wiring, armor plate, ship’s stores, and a lot more.”
Dayson clasped her arm. “I knew it was the right thing to do to toss you back into the fray. You’ve done well, Inez.”
Maybe she was going to be Inez to her new direct commander. If that was the most irritating thing the admiral did, they’d get along well. “Thank you, admiral. Should I show you the ship and our projected capabilities now?”
“By all means.” The admiral keyed the mic on her pressure suit. “The conversation is over. The tour is resuming in thirty seconds.”
The other officers filed back into the room, the two working onboard with Heinrich looked at her with eyes momentarily wide as if to ask if there was trouble.
Heinrich gave them a thumbs up and turned back to Dayson.
“So, admiral…”
The rest of the tour went well, and the tone made clear that there were no problems between the XO and her commander.
The Stennis would be a monster when the refit was complete. A monster using ancient and obsolete technology in many systems, but still a monster. The adepts, if they upheld their end of the plan, would make this the most powerful ship in the hands of humanity.
Chapter 34 - Opening the Gate
17 Jand 15330
Dr. Thea Jannis placed the Petri dish with her specimen back into the sterile booth in her lab, and walked to the window.
The view was beautiful. Below her fish swam in the warm water of the lagoon, bright red shimbori fish, if she remembered the local name right. A fishing boat was passing through the sea break in the reef out past the lagoon. A brilliant green sky lay above her, turning almost midnight blue directly overhead.
A squall line flashed on the far horizon, after having passed the city last night.
In front of her a seabird floated in the winds crossing over the top of the building.
She couldn’t help but feel it was judging her for being present in its lagoon. But if her latest idea bore fruit, then it was very likely her presence here was extremely worthwhile.
She was technically the mayor of Jerna City and elected ruler of New Korvand. But the place pretty much ran itself, and she quickly discovered that if she let people do their jobs, those jobs got done faster.
This building was a perfect example. Concept to finished in three months.
Sure, it was mostly prefabricated construction modules, but that didn’t make it any less beautiful. And it made it even more reliable and safe in the face of the storms this place threw at it.
Peter Corriea and Eris Dantora were the bosses in this building. Thea had come begging for office and lab space. It was far better than the clinic she’d started on the town square. That building was now a shoe store, if she remembered right. She hadn’t been back since she’d carried out the last box to move here.
Peter had been happy to have her. It gave him direct access to the mayor, sure, but she could tell he liked her as well. So she found herself the occupant of a nice lab suite on the top floor, five stories above the water.
It was lunch time.
Grabbing the satchel she packed for herself each morning, she headed down to the walkway that joined the building to the city. The walkway was wide, and bordered with bench seats that faced the water and gave people a spot from which to view the sea.
She found an open bench and sat down. The concrete beneath her feet didn’t detract from the scene around her. The alumaglass railings let her see through to the water below, to watch the aquatic life as she ate.
“Can I join you?”
Startled, Thea jerked her head around. Eris Dantora stood next to the bench, a satchel similar to Thea’s in her hands.
“Of course,” Thea replied. “I’d love the company.”
That wasn’t completely true. Thea liked to eat her lunches alone and think about her research. But if she was going to have company, Eris was certainly among the best of options.
“How are you settling in?” Eris asked as she sat down.
“Up and running. Most of the equipment is modular, so it was plug and play. How about you and Peter?”
“This place is amazing. We’re doing well, and you’ll be glad to hear we have room for a school on the first floor. Once these babies everyone is making get a few years older, we’ll have a place for them.”
Thea touched Eris’s arm. “That is great. You two are going to make a huge difference in this place.”
“Peter had an idea during our sleep last night. He jumped out of bed so fast that I almost peed myself,” Eris said.
Thea would take that bait. “I’m glad you survived and are still dry,” she responded. “What sort of idea was it?”
“He never got back to sleep. So of course, neither did I. He was wondering about the drug you made that eliminates the ability of the adepts to use their gift.”
“We have no use for that now,” Thea said, “but I keep a supply on hand just
in case. What about it?”
“He said that the drug works by closing the cellular gate that interfaces with the sixth force. In doing so it also reinforces that gate so the adepts are more resilient against gravity waves.”
Thea’s mouth dropped open slightly, then she closed it. If Eris was going where she seemed to be with this conversation, Peter’s idea was exactly the same as Thea’s. But Thea had already started the research. Even now a computer in the lab was working with individual cells from Eislen’s brain biopsy to determine if there was a way to make the gate more rigid without damaging its function.
“He’s wondering if there is a way to reinforce the structure of the cellular gate without detracting from the function of it?” Thea asked.
“Exactly,” Eris answered. “He—”
“—wants to be able to take the adepts into the galaxy proper…” Thea finished.
Eris nodded.
A chill shivered down Thea’s spine. What would Sarah do with such a tool? Would she go back to war with the Hive? Of course she would. She’d have no choice. The woman couldn’t say no to saving the rest of humanity.
And probably shouldn’t.
But Thea was so sick of war. She wanted these people around her to live. The toddler next to her banging on the alumaglass to get the attention of a ray, that kid deserved a life.
“Why?” Thea asked.
“I can see from the expression on your face that you know why. Partially,” Eris replied. “But we’ll also be able to get the things we can’t make here. New AIs. Technology we can’t make ourselves. More ships. More mining tools. More chocolate.”
That last one was so opposite of a functional reason that Thea couldn’t help but laugh. “I do like chocolate. Rumor has it that Sarah has the entire remaining supply in the fleet. Apparently she inherited it from Commander Gilbert when he died.”
“So you’ll consider it?”
“Consider it?” Thea laughed. “I’m already working on it. Meet me in my lab after lunch and I’ll show you. Bring Peter if he’s free.”
Eris smiled, and stood up. “I’ll let you eat your lunch in peace then. I like my thinking time too.”
