Hunters of the Deep mda-12

by Randall N Bills

  If he thought about those conflicting emotions too long, he knew which side he would come down on. The rest of his Aimag would never understand.

  “What… is… this?” The slow, drawn-out words from Jesup scraped across the room, heightening the tension. Petr could almost feel Jesup’s hands reaching toward Snow’s neck with delusions of snapping it; there could only be one outcome to such a gesture, and Petr would hate to lose a friend he only recently came to appreciate.

  A chair scraped loudly across metal as Snow pulled it out from under the vehicle’s holotable, placed a booted foot on it. “This is the proof you have so desperately been seeking.” She raised her chin, a clear challenge to Jesup.

  He did not rise to it, though Petr swore he could hear Jesup’s teeth grinding.

  “Snow,” Petr said, trying to refocus the moment, “what is it?” In all their eyes, the elemental had lost his human status.

  “This is Corin,” she said, caressing his head as though petting a favorite dog. “He and I have had many long, long talks. You Clanners are so stoic, but once I get to know you, you can’t shut up.” She batted her eyes in his direction. “Right, sweetness?”

  Petr cleared his throat, actually uncomfortable. Could she make it any worse? “Please, Snow, get to the point.”

  “Oh, the point,” she began. “Well, that would be the fact that this here fine specimen happened to accompany ol’ man Sha on his sabbatical to the Falcons.”

  “What!” both men cried simultaneously. With avid hunger, Petr appraised the elemental in a new light. Proof! The proof he needed.

  Then he contemplated saKhan Sennet’s reactions. His probing questions. Any answer can be dragged out through torture.

  Snow smiled a look of pure triumph, which transformed her face. Victory made anything, anyone, beautiful. She gently tapped him on the head, and the elemental opened up his hands, raising what he held. The dim lighting of the flickering holotable revealed a small, mechanical plug-in, like a small noteputer memory cartridge. It took a moment for them to recognize what they were seeing.

  “Savashri!” Petr growled, triumph washing over his face. He looked at Snow again and once more they shared a fleeting moment, her blazing eyes matching his, their emotions raging across the short distance between. Though the storm still blew in, they just might have found the shield to ride it out.

  A battle armor ROM memory core—the elemental had worn his armor during the meeting.

  26

  Location Unknown

  12 September 3134

  The uniforms gleamed in the sun, royal garments for the homecoming ceremony.

  Two DropShips were already aloft; the third loaded the final ’Mechs and vehicles, battened down hatches, performed final systems checks and secured vehicles into their bays in preparation for liftoff.

  The forces had gathered from across dozens of light-years to this rendezvous point: an out-of-the-way world, with no working HPG, the only inhabitants subsistence farmers on the northern continent who would not know a landing DropShip from a falling star, much less an ascending one.

  Secrecy.

  The commander hated it, yet understood the need. She wanted to crow to the stars that, after long decades, the return had begun. Wanted to shout about the successes achieved so far. Could feel the need churning, the desire to challenge someone, anyone.

  Soon, soon enough.

  The men and women chosen for this mission shared her desire: the snap of eyes, quick movements, lips firm with resolve. Knowing the prize they reached to grasp, fully aware of the difficulty of the challenge.

  But victory, oh, victory would be sweet.

  Would teach the renegades a lesson they would not soon forget.

  After decades of enforced peace—a peace that benefited only the despotic and the moneylovers—the time had come to challenge, to grasp the fruit from the forbidden tree.

  Time to seize destiny. Time to shake the universe. Time to reclaim the honor lost.

  Time for war.

  27

  Clan Sea Fox CargoShip Voidswimmer

  Nadir Jump Point, Adhafera

  Prefecture VII, The Republic

  21 September 3134

  Warning Klaxons blared down the length of the CargoShip, strident, demanding instant action to avoid catastrophe. The tone and frequency of the bursts sent personnel running in every direction. Some took up emergency stations with practiced calm, others fumbled in confusion; aside from drills, such a warning had not been heard in the lifetime of most of those aboard.

  Incoming JumpShip… Voidswimmer within the projected KF-drive emergence bubble.

  “What in the Founder’s name is happening? How is this possible?” Petr bellowed from the bridge of the CargoShip, forgetting the impropriety of such an outburst on Star Commodore Konner’s vessel. His status as ovKhan did not excuse his behavior.

  The bridge personnel ignored him. Unlike so many of the civilians on board the vessel and in the pod communities on the attached DropShips, they knew their jobs by rote and responded with instant action.

  In a pendulum counterpoint to Petr’s bellow, Konner’s voice remained calm, cut through the bridge hubbub and the siren like a diamond through glass—a sound that could not be ignored. “Full thrust on my mark.”

  The collective indrawn breath of those present filled the bridge with the pummeling heartbeat of the entire Clan Sea Fox Voidswimmer community. In an instant, the tens of thousands on board his community paraded before Petr’s mind’s eye; their scramble to prepare for impact or thrust would not be enough. Regardless of shipboard discipline, such an event simply had not occurred in too many years and people had no time to take the correct precautions. Things would not be completely stowed. Individuals would be unable to sufficiently secure all items, including themselves.

  There would be damage.

  Numerous injuries.

  Fatalities.

  “Three, two, one. Engage, maximum thrust.” As though driven by the vocal synapses of Konner’s voice, the pilot’s arm responded instantly, cascading across a series of switches and buttons, before initiating a full burn: maximum power.

  Like a beast suddenly thrown into heat, the entire ship thrummed, shook; vibrations undulated the length of the keel, sending secondary reverberations out along the main struts on each deck, the shockwaves whipping out into the skin, which oscillated well beyond allowable stress levels.

  Small breaches on two decks occurred immediately.

  As the mammoth interplanetary drives pummeled the ship forward under gravities not experienced in decades, three more small breaches occurred, while power failures plunged several decks into darkness.

  The mass of the CargoShip made the move seem almost miraculous. Petr imagined he could see the fabric of space splitting along the bow of the ship: a snarling swirl of raging space water, torn from its placid calm and thrust into a maelstrom that arced around the ship and into violent vortices in the ship’s wake.

  Seconds ticked by as the behemoth vessel tried to slough off the chains of gravity and inertia and launch itself into motion.

  At a command from Konner, the main viewscreen split into two sections: the left side showing forward, the right showing rearward toward the incoming JumpShip, toward their potential doom.

  Petr’s hands clenched the edge of his jumpseat. Though he was the ultimate leader of the community, in such crises the ship’s commander took absolute authority. Petr hated feeling helpless.

  Though the crew attacked their tasks relentlessly, with Konner issuing numerous commands sending personnel toward hull breaches and power failures, all eyes stayed glued on the rear viewscreen.

  Not enough thrust. Petr ground his teeth, his muscles aching after so many days at double gravity to reach the jump point quickly.

  For the first time, he regretted downgrading the Voidswimmer’s massive drives, now striving through old grit and disuse to push out a paltry two gravities; the disharmonic pings and odd thumps reaching his
ears reminded him (as if the bucking of the vessel itself did not) that the Voidswimmer might not survive such abuse. Slowly, achingly, she picked up forward momentum.

  Sweat beaded across his face and fell toward the back of his head.

  The seconds ticked into minutes and then long minutes. Velocity increased. Though wretched, horrible sounds still spanned the length of the CargoShip, Petr could feel it acclimatizing to the punishment, adjusting to the pounding rhythm of the fusion drives.

  As Petr’s mental clock reached fifteen minutes, a wretched smile stretched his face. When the tortured time dilation tipped the scale at twenty minutes, he began to laugh out loud a wheezing of tormented air. Though he knew his laughter was raising hackles around the room, he could not stop; his was the laughter of the damned.

  Delicious irony. The man I am most desperate to see arrives days ahead of schedule and might just kill us all in the process.

  His frenzied laughter reached a crescendo, filling the bridge as the universe vomited an ArcShip from its belly, tearing at its only reality, spewing forth an emergence wave of pain, suffering, anguish, before sealing its wounded shell and vanishing once more from human perception.

  Delta Community (the Celestial Thirst, an aging Behemoth–class DropShip attached to the Voidswimmer for long decades) took the brunt of the damage. Most of the casualties occurred there and the docking ring, regardless of its carbon-carbon reinforced struts, crumbled and partially tore, shifting the entire ship during the mad forward thrust. Then, as the incoming emergence energy shattered atoms all along the front of the wave, the ship actually lurched forward, for a brief burst obtaining a velocity it never achieved even before its transformation. Though the hard work of Fox Clansmen engineers in decades past kept the ship from completely tearing away, it listed radically, throwing objects and personnel from their stowed positions. These became projectiles fired as though from a gun, causing massive damage inside the old ship and hundreds of casualties. Though the other DropShip communities and the Voidswimmer itself sustained some damage, of the four hundred and thirteen injuries, more than three hundred of them occurred in Delta Community; of the twenty-seven deaths, nineteen.

  They all got off lucky.

  For the second time within as many months, Petr moved along the corridors of the Poseidon. Blind to the humanity around him, he swam with the relentlessness of the hunter. Ignored the sights and smells in which he usually took such pleasure.

  The almost death of a good portion of his Aimag opened his eyes.

  As with the epiphany concerning Jesup, Petr’s eyes were opened to the uncompromising truth of his own hypocrisy. For so long Petr had believed himself to be doing the best for his Aimag.

  When in reality, he worked for himself.

  That Delta Aimag truly prospered under such leadership meant nothing. Such thinking by Sha was how they arrived at this day, this hour. This moment in time.

  The ends justify the means. Or in this case, my means justify the ends.

  Stripped of every charade and rationalization by such a close brush with the annihilation of most of Delta Aimag, he could not avert his eyes from his own selfishness. From the way he took his own people for granted. Their cares, their worries and fears, their honor and contributions to the Clan: all cast aside and ignored. By him. The ovKhan!

  Now, as he pushed off one last stanchion and sailed toward the saKhan’s main office on the Poseidon, he did not ignore the people around him because their regard was nothing more than his due, but because of a duty to fulfill, a mission to accomplish.

  A fine line, but one that made all the difference in the world.

  Petr rapped sharply on the hatch, which swung in almost immediately. A haggard face greeted him; he’d never see saKhan Sennet look so terrible.

  “ovKhan Petr, what occurred,” he began, holding up a hand as though to stay a strike of condemnation. He paused, continued. “I cannot begin—”

  “saKhan,” Petr cut him off. “What almost occurred was a mistake… but it is the past. We must now move quickly to the future. We must move, or our Clan may be sundered beyond redemption.”

  He risked much with his words; one did not cut off saKhan Sennet midsentence without good reason—accidental near-annihilation of Delta Aimag or not. His rage visible in his eyes, saKhan Sennet angrily demanded, “What are you talking about?”

  “ovKhan Sha, saKhan. He lifted from Adhafera a week and more past, and we are giving chase. He must be stopped.” Petr stood just inside the hatch, his strained muscles pounded by multiple gravities for endless days calling out for rest. For sleep.

  Disgust swam out from deep eyes to envelop the man’s face; a giant hand flicked, as though to cast away an unseen filth. “Not this again,” he began, the scorn in his voice a mirror of his visage. “You risked what you did on a whim? On your own assumptions of ineptitude? I have never made such an error before, but with you… a Trial of Grievance, here and now, is the only way you might survive this disaster.” Though the volume did not change, his voice hardened like endomorphic steel extruded from one of their many orbital factories; worlds might shatter against such a force of will.

  Petr took the verbal whipping without a wince and walked past saKhan Sennet, his magnetic boots clanging softly, to the other man’s desk. Reaching into a hip satchel, he pulled out the battle armor ROM memory core along with a small reader. He placed the machine on the desk, where it audibly clicked with suction. Fitting in the core, he flicked the switch and took one step back. He did not turn toward the saKhan, unwilling to watch his reaction, his surprise.

  Hopefully, surprise.

  Petr tried not to think of the ramifications if this were not a surprise. Of the quick and brutal death at the other man’s hands if he guessed wrong.

  The scene played out. He had only been able to bear to watch it one time before this. The art of it, a thrust to the midsection.

  Audacious. Brilliant. Brutal. Terrific, and terrifying.

  Sha’s plan encapsulated all a Clan Sea Fox merchant aspired to accomplish. To be. A hundred generations of teaching and refinement led to this. The sheer genius of it all simply took the breath away.

  Yet, ultimately, it was traitorous. Destructive. The breaking of what made Clan Sea Fox… Sea Fox.

  As the feed clicked off and the machine autoterminated its power, Petr slowly turned toward saKhan Sennet; for just an instant, the back of his neck itched, as though he waited to feel a hand descending in a strike to send him into ultimate oblivion.

  Horror illuminated Mikel Sennet’s features in harsh lines. Petr let out a breath he had held unknowing. Though Fox Clansmen, as with any merchants, knew when to hide their hand, Petr did not think such emotion feigned. It was too primal; Sennet was truly stricken.

  Eyes locked onto Petr’s like laser-guided landing lights. In those depths, the stunned disbelief read like a holofax in fifty-point type, able to be read from across the room. The man actually staggered slightly, tried to right himself and managed to unlatch himself from the floor. He swept his arms and legs back and forth futilely; a clumsiness embarrassing under any other circumstances went unremarked as his brain consumed what he’d just seen, unable to devote energy to fine motor control.

  After a pregnant pause, full of strained anger and incredulity, Petr broke the silence. “My saKhan,” he began, as formal an address as he ever gave Khan Sennet, “there can be only one course of action. We must find the Khan. We must mobilize the fleet we have at hand and begin to move from system to system along the path he is likely to take.”

  Licking his lips, Sennet began to nod slowly: a child coming out of the darkness with the realization he can turn on the light. He can act.

  Petr felt like pushing forward, yet realized he might go too far too fast. He must allow Sennet to come to grips with this. To see the urgency himself and make a decision.

  After what felt an eternity, Sennet responded, “Aff. Yes. We must move to protect the Khan.” Regaining his feet, he mas
tered himself, bringing his emotions under control and superimposing the ubiquitous Fox merchant caste mask.

  “And what of Sha?” he asked, his voice once more as hard as a ferrous-nickel Gauss round, with eyes to match.

  Petr’s eyes mirrored the savagery; his voice was a sentence of annihilation. “One Scout JumpShip. My personal Trinary.

  “Leave him to me.”

  28

  Stewart DropPort, New Edinburgh

  Lothian, Stewart

  Prefecture VII, The Republic

  24 September 3134

  Anew world. New possibilities.

  ovKhan Sha Clarke felt more confident than he had in days. Gazing out from the top of the off-loading ramp of the grounded DropShip Breaker of Waves, he could see the cityscape spread out before him, moving away from the DropPort into the distance: a surrealistic matte painting.

  A twisting skein of metal, ferrocrete and high-strength polymers: man-made stalagmites rupturing the planet’s crust; spreading scintillating, serrated bones to the lapis lazuli sphere swathing Stewart.

  In his years as a trader, Sha had beheld many cityscape vistas. Many that eclipsed New Edinburgh in size, or height, or population, or any number of parameters. But the jagged, strange design of the city’s largest buildings and its odd, twisting streets, set against such a magnificent dome of a sky, with literally not a single puff of white to pull at the eye (a stravag relief after the endless cloud cover of Adhafera), gestalted into a striking beauty all its own.

  A light breeze—a touch harsh—carrying the dry aroma of desert sage and the ubiquitous reek of petrochemicals found in any city in the human sphere, caressed his nostrils.

  Familiar, yet alien. Comforting.

  Yes. This must be a sign. A change. A move to the future. Here deals would once again be quickly struck. Here his plan would reach fruition. Here mistakes could be put at a distance. Forgotten.