“How does that console me?” I shouted, coughing afterward.
“Oh,” Ifness said. “My bad. By trying to save your woman—who has already been lost for good—you’ve ensured trillions of deaths from years of coming brutal war against the Plutonians.”
“Surely, you have a plan, right?” I asked. “There’s a reason you’re urging N7 to hurry back to the fleet.”
“Yes,” Ifness said, while glancing at N7. “I have a plan. It could get us all killed, will get us killed because this android is too stupid to do what needs doing. Now, if he would listen to—”
“What’s your plan?” I asked, interrupting.
Ifness gave me a wintery grin. “I’m going to destroy everything in the pocket universe.”
“How is that possible?”
“Several months ago,” Ifness said, “I preprogrammed the PDS. To be precise, Jennifer had me preprogram the great station. It was one of her holds over the Plutonians. I don’t know if they’ve forgotten about that or if they’ve already dismantled the programming.”
“What?” I said.
“Right after the commando raid, I teleported away and started the doomsday process. Then I returned to the team to get us out of there fast.”
“What doomsday process?”
“Didn’t I previously mention that I’d built several levels into the doomsday protocols?” Ifness asked.
“No!”
“Oh. Well, the first two secret PDS protocols are there for the Plutonians to find. The third—once they find it, too—is to make them realize I tried to outsmart them but that they were too clever for me. The fourth…” Ifness shook his head. “They’re not going to find the fourth protocol in time. If I’m right about that—which I am—the PDS is going to fire cobalt-tipped missiles and heavy beams into the planet. Those missiles and beams will ignite the unstable core.”
“And the accompanying explosion will destroy the PDS?” I asked.
“Oh, yes indeedie,” Ifness said.
“So…why do we have to race back to our fleet again?”
“You’d better listen carefully so you understand. Are you listening, Creed?”
“Just get on with it,” I snapped.
Ifness nodded. “The entire planet will blow up, and that will ignite the special Plutonian gases that have been pumping into the pocket universe during its long existence. Once the gases ignite, they will burn, destroying everything in this realm.”
“By everything,” I said, “does that include our fleet?”
“Our fleet, their fleet, the PDS, everything,” Ifness said.
I was speechless. This was incredible.
“That’s…that’s a genocidal plan,” Ella sputtered.
“Don’t you understand yet?” Ifness asked her. “The First Ones installed that special failsafe. That’s why they made this place the way it is. They knew it would be generations before anyone found the pocket universe. It would take the planet that long to manufacture all that special flammable gas and pump it throughout the system.”
“I’ll be damned,” I said, softly.
“No,” Ifness said. “If you can’t get this ship moving any faster, you’ll be dead. We all will, including me.”
“Uh, one question,” I said. “Do you know where the dimensional portal is that will get us out of here?”
“That I do,” Ifness said.
“Can we and the invasion fleet reach the portal in time?”
“If we accelerate soon enough, maybe,” Ifness said. “But maybe just to be sure, we should already be headed there ourselves.”
I turned to N7.
“If we accelerate too fast,” the android said, “the Plutonians will surely spot and destroy our ship.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “not if we accelerate fast enough.”
“I know about the mechanism you are implying with your comment,” N7 said. “We can’t risk it, though, because the gases will impede our travel too much—the gases will cause too much friction and burn away our hull, killing us in the process.”
I nodded slowly. “You might be right. But I don’t see that we have any other choice than to try.”
“It is your call, Commander,” N7 said, primly.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s get this ship ready to move.”
“Directly to the dimensional portal?” Ifness asked.
I stared at him. Isn’t that what I had done to Jennifer long ago at the portal planet? I shook my head. No. I’d thought Jennifer had been safely aboard and had learned too late that she hadn’t.
“If we don’t get back to our universe,” Ifness said, “how will anyone know that we’ve—?”
“Hey!” I said with force. “We’re saving our fleet by taking them to the portal, and that’s final.”
Ifness seemed peeved and looked away.
I crackled my knuckles, starting to feel better. It was time to get moving.
-88-
Ella, N7, Ifness and I buckled in. N7 had already secured Saul and Jennifer. Ella and I were in the piloting chamber. The others were elsewhere on the stealth ship.
“Creed, I have a question,” Ella said.
“Do I trust Ifness?”
“That’s right. Do you?”
“In what way do you mean?”
“You’re dodging the question,” she said.
I sighed. “The short answer is some. I trust him to want to live. From that issues my willingness to believe him—partially, anyway—for now.”
“What if Jennifer or someone else has preconditioned him?”
“You think this is part of some sinister plot? All right, tell me this, who’s doing the plotting? It couldn’t have been Jennifer. I mean, my knocking her unconscious and kidnapping her couldn’t be part of a nefarious plot she’s hatched.”
“No, I suppose not.” Ella thought deeply before asking, “I wonder if all the Abaddon clones are dead.”
“Do you have any particular clone in mind?”
“Orcus,” she said. “I haven’t seen him for a long time. I didn’t see him in the Control Chamber.”
“I don’t recall seeing Orcus either, but maybe N7 killed him with the Disrupter Rifle. Oh. I’ve actually thought of a slim possibility to consider along with all this being a plot. Holgotha still seems to be running loose.”
“Yes, yes,” Ella said, as if revitalized. “The Forerunner artifact might well have—”
“Stop!” I said, interrupting her, wishing I hadn’t mentioned Holgotha. “We don’t have the luxury of figuring out every angle beforehand. Let’s destroy one enemy at a time, and worry about the next one later…”
“Yet more Creed speeches,” Ella complained.
From my chair, I focused on the piloting controls, making adjustments. The AI had the coordinates for the last known position of our invasion fleet. Rollo might have moved, though. The First Admiral might have detected the approaching, sneaking Plutonian warships. Might have this, might have that—it was time to make a choice.
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“No,” Ella said. “But that’s never stopped you before.”
I switched on the intra-ship communications. “Get ready, get set, because here we go.”
I didn’t wait for any replies, but pressed the activation switch. We’d been accelerating slowly. Now, I kicked in shift-speed so that we would return quickly to the invasion fleet—if it was in the calculated spot, and if we survived—
The shift-speeding GEV began shaking, due no doubt to buffeting outer gases. The shaking intensified, causing my teeth to chatter against each other. A klaxon blared—
“Warning,” the AI said.
“Can it!” I shouted, with everything shaking around me.
“I do not understand your reference,” the AI said.
“That means ‘shut up.’”
“Cease giving warnings altogether?”
“Just for the next minute,” I shouted.
“Even if enemy warships are f
iring at us?” the AI asked.
“No, not then. Are they firing at us?”
“Negative.”
“Then why did you ask that question?” I shouted.
“My decision parameters are such that—” An explosion inside the ship ended the statement.
I studied a chronometer, waited for it…and pulled a lever.
A loud and insistent interior whine ceased immediately, as did the ship’s shaking. Ella and I both jerked against our safety straps.
“What is the status of the hull’s integrity?” I asked, winded.
The AI did not answer.
“AI, I rescind the previous order. You can speak again.”
“The hull is eighty-three percent intact,” the AI said.
That meant gases and friction had breached seventeen percent of the hull. That was far too much. Were stellar gases pouring into the rest of the ship?
“Have you sealed off the rest of the ship to the exposed areas?” I asked.
“Affirmative,” the AI said in its robotic voice.
Like submarines, the GEV had fully sealable hatches that kept up the internal integrity of the vessel.
“Creed,” Ella said.
I knew what she was going to add. “Is or was anyone in the breached areas?” I asked.
The AI did not answer.
I began unbuckling. Here was more trouble. Had we lost someone?
“There are no biological entities in the exposed areas of the GEV,” the AI said.
Why had it delayed giving an answer and why had it been so specific? “Are there any foreign attackers of any kind in the exposed areas?” I asked.
“Negative,” the AI said. “May I add, Effectuator, that you appear to be overly sensitive to my semantics?”
“You may not.”
“Noted.”
“Send robotic repair teams to the exposed areas. Begin repairing the outer hull at once.”
“The repair team is on its way.”
“Are there any other immediate dangers?” I asked.
“I would have informed you if there were, Effectuator.”
“Right,” I said. “Can you spot any Earth Force vessels in our vicinity?”
“Negative.”
I cursed. Where had Rollo gone—?
“Effectuator,” the AI said, interrupting my thoughts. “I have spotted an Earth-built probe. It is emitting a weak signal. Would you like me to translate its message to you?”
“Is the probe’s message addressed to me?”
“Yes, Effectuator.”
“Let’s hear it,” I said, deciding that getting angry with the AI was a waste of time.
The AI informed me that the First Admiral had sent a coded puzzle that revealed the fleet’s movements. I feared, for a just a moment, that Rollo had decided to make the attack run against the PDS. Instead, to my delight, the message said that Rollo had retreated several hundred thousand kilometers, as the sensor techs had detected enemy ship movement around them.
The weeks in Plutonian Space had paid off for us. The Earth-Force crews had become more proficient and savvy in this realm.
“One more shift-speed,” I said.
“Are you sure, Creed?” Ella said. “We’ve already taken hull damage. How does it help to reach Rollo as a wreck?”
“The gases aren’t as thick out here. We should be fine this time.”
“Whatever you say,” Ella muttered.
I made some swift calculations, asked the AI’s advice, informed the others to be ready, and once more risked entering shift-speed…
-89-
We made it to the fleet—barely.
Still, Ella had proven herself a better prophet than me. The GEV not only took more hull damage but lost the robot repair team. I hadn’t informed the team and the AI hadn’t thought it necessary before we entered shift-speed. I’d have to look into that later, if we survived.
Despite the extra damage, the GEV limped into one of the hangar bays of Battlejumper Demetrius amid a raging space battle against the forward elements of the original two Plutonian fleets.
The great battlejumper shivered as we hurried across the hangar-bay deck.
“What was that?” Ella asked.
I shrugged while dragging Jennifer in her sleep-suit. She floated behind me on a mini gravity sled.
The Demetrius shook again, harder than before.
“Ifness,” I said. “Take the sled. Ella, show him where to stow Jennifer. And don’t leave Ifness alone with her. N7, you guard Jennifer from Ifness as well.”
“That’s not very trusting of you,” Ifness told me.
I stopped to look back at the hitman. I shook my head. What kind of fool was I? I looked around, spied a hangar-bay tech and whistled for the woman’s attention.
She came running.
I gave her instructions regarding Jennifer. “On no account let anyone wake her,” I said.
After receiving the tech’s acknowledgement and watching her take the gravity sled, I put a heavy hand on Ifness’s shoulder. “You’re coming with me.”
“I have to look after Saul,” Ifness said.
“Now,” I said, squeezing so Ifness winced painfully under my grip.
That didn’t last. The hitman tried a fancy hold on my squeezing hand. I twisted free of him and used two hands and an arm to put him in a painful headlock.
“We’re all going to die if we don’t do this right,” I whispered in his ear.
“Let go of me,” he hissed.
“You’re coming with me, as Rollo needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
Our eyes met. I could see he really did want to kill Jennifer. That wasn’t just an act. I also saw that he saw I understood that about him.
“Fine,” he said. “Truce?”
“Truce,” I said, letting go.
I half-suspected Ifness to make a quick try, come what may. Did I see the thought flash in his eyes? Then the thought vanished. He must have realized I watched him too closely.
“Let’s go,” Ifness muttered.
I pointed. He went in that direction, and soon we both began to sprint for the main elevator. In time, the two of us reached the bridge exhausted. By that point, neither of us was in the best of shape.
Captain Maddison Rowell stood, vacating her chair.
“No need for that,” I said. “You’re still the Demetrius’s captain.”
She resumed her place on the captain’s chair.
“Patch me through to the First Admiral,” I told the Comm Officer. “May I use the main screen for this?” I asked the captain.
“I would have it no other way, sir,” Maddison said.
In seconds, I saw the First Admiral on the Quebec’s bridge. Rollo barked orders, listened to one of his officers, turned and barked more orders. Finally, he faced around, looking through the screen at Ifness and me.
A huge smile broke out on Rollo’s face. “You’re back. Do you have Jennifer?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you’d do it, Creed. What’s the situation?”
I told him as tersely and quickly as I could. I pointed at Ifness. The hitman explained fast, adding applicable facts about the PDS, the unstable planetary core and then the flammable gases.
“Run away, huh?” Rollo asked, dubiously. “I can’t say I like it. But if everyone and everything is going to burn here…” He chuckled in an evil and vindictive way. “It will have to be a running fight, at least for a time.”
“I get that,” I said. “The key is to start now. Ifness set the clock ticking. Either we get out in time or we die.”
Rollo nodded. “Couldn’t have sent a signal through all this gaseous crap, I understand. How far away is the dimensional portal?”
Ifness told him.
Rollo tapped a nearby console. He appeared to be nothing but a bruiser. The bulky muscles kept many folks from guessing he had a sharp mind. He looked up. “You barely made it back in time, Creed.”
I nodded. I knew that.
“We need to break away from the enemy,” Rollo said. A second later, he smiled like a shark smelling blood. “The missiles—it’s time to put our massed missiles into play.”
“That’s an excellent idea, First Admiral,” I said.
Rollo barked the loudest laugh so far and then turned to his command team and began to issue strings of orders. The final contest had just about begun.
-90-
The thick and fumy gases of this realm made it hard to know how everything was going.
Even so, we certainly knew that the forward elements of two Plutonian fleets attacked the rearmost part of our invasion fleet. The enemy had numbers at the point of contact, but we didn’t know that right away.
Our main tactic quickly became a standard one. Massed battlejumpers pounded on a single Plutonian cruiser with graviton beams as missile officers remote-piloted missile packs against the beleaguered ship. Invariably, the cruiser detonated violently with its sinister explosive, hurting our attacking ships as badly as it did other nearby cruisers. Sometimes, because of the wicked explosion, a second cruiser detonated.
We lost the Brazil and the Indonesia because of enemy chain-reaction explosions, as the battlejumpers’ outer armored hulls ruptured and enemy beams lashed the innards before the ships could escape.
Rollo kept rotating our battlejumpers, sending wounded ships forward and fresh vessels back to stave off the increasingly heavy Plutonian rushes.
The maneuver wouldn’t work forever, as Rollo would soon run out of fresh battlejumpers. Could we get away in time?
As Ifness and I watched from the Demetrius’s bridge, we saw more and more missiles launching from cargo holds and firing tubes. The amount of missiles the fleet had brought along was impressive.
Finally, the battlejumpers’ missile holds were depleted. All that remained in them were the nearly useless torpedoes.
By that time, our invasion fleet had begun to accelerate away from the Plutonians. In the fleet’s place was the first wave of massed PDD missiles.
Target: Earth (Extinction Wars Book 5) Page 33
