by J. N. Chaney
Since they were in agreement, everyone started to stand, but Ragsdale said, “There’s one other thing I think we need to talk about. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we need to talk about our new arrivals,” Ragsdale said.
“You mean Harolyn and her people?” Amy asked.
Ragsdale nodded. “Dash and I have talked about this before, briefly. We figured that if and when we recruited more people to help with the war effort here, we probably shouldn’t just give them the run of the Forge. We arranged with Custodian to give them access immediately to non-critical parts of the place, with the understanding we might eventually trust them enough to let them have more freedom—get them involved in more sensitive operations.”
“Makes sense,” Viktor said.
Leira nodded. “We know the Golden use agents. Look at Clan Shirna.”
“Hell, the Unseen are using human agents,” Dash said. “That’s basically what we are.”
“Yes,” Ragsdale said. “And now that we have our first group of new recruits, as it were, we need to decide what happens next. Do we screen them? How? And how do they prove themselves trustworthy?”
A long silence followed. Dash saw everyone looking uncertain, and realized that, for once, they really had no answers. He gave a small nod and grinned, filling the moment with his own confidence because he knew they needed it.
“We’re going to figure this out,” Dash said. “Or we might as well stop trying to get more people on-side with what we’re doing. I have a path, but I need you all with me, and not halfway.”
“I’m with Dash. We can’t afford to do this on our own, even with the tools we have,” Leira replied. “If we try to fight this war by ourselves, just us in this room, then…” She trailed off into a shrug.
“Yeah,” Dash said. “Exactly.” He turned to Ragsdale. “This is a job for you. Come up with some way we can satisfy ourselves that we’re not letting Golden spies and saboteurs into our happy little family here?”
Ragsdale gave a curt nod. “Will do.”
“Okay, then,” Dash said. “Let’s reconvene here in two hours and figure out how we’re going back to Brahe.”
Dash brought the Archetype out of unSpace on the far side of Brahe’s star from the planet, counting on the hurricane of energy pouring off it to obscure his approach into the system. Before heading in-system, he studied the heads-up, looking for any telltale signs that they might have triggered Golden defenses.
“There is nothing to indicate we have been detected,” Sentinel announced. “I am sensing no emissions of any type that are not from a natural source.”
“So far, so good then,” Dash said, and aimed the Archetype straight for the star.
This was the easy part. Once he rounded the star and came into view of Brahe, things would get more complicated. Even then, the star—a very hot, blue, type B—was active enough that by keeping it directly behind the Archetype with respect to the planet, they should remain obscured until they were ready to move on the Golden’s orbiting…whatever it was.
The real wild card was the massive ship belonging to the Bright, whatever that was. Dash had made finding it, if it remained in the system, an absolute priority. Without using any active scanning systems and just relying on whatever the Archetype’s passive sensors could detect, he’d hamstrung their ability to reliably locate even something as big as that ship had been. It wasn’t anywhere obvious, but that didn’t offer a lot of comfort.
“I hate this part,” Dash said.
“You hate which part, of what?” Sentinel asked.
“Just waiting while we deliberately head into trouble. It’s nerve-wracking and tedious, both at the same time. That’s not a good combination.”
Time passed, and the star looming ahead slowly swelled, filling the heads-up. Dash could see loops and whorls of gases leaping off its roiling surface, then falling back, each the size of a hundred planets. Finally, as the Archetype’s hull temperature began to creep up, he eased the mech into a tight orbit, gaining velocity from the star’s immense gravitational pull. The Archetype had no shortage of power despite being down a few cores from it’s top limit —but stealing momentum from the star meant not having to use the drive, and that meant one less thing to give them away.
“Brahe is now in sight,” Sentinel said.
Dash nodded. The planet itself was invisible, of course, but a symbolic icon on the heads-up showed it rising over the surface of the star in the distance. Dash adjusted their course again, now aiming the Archetype on a trajectory that would take it directly there.
“Still no sign of any other ships?” he asked.
“I am now detecting spillover radio emissions from the Golden construct orbiting Brahe, similar to those I recorded previously. Other than that, I am not sensing anything out of the ordinary.”
Dash frowned. “So where the hell are the Bright?”
“I cannot answer that other than to say not currently here.”
“Then I have to assume they’re hiding.”
“That is possible. However, there are no gravitational anomalies to suggest such a large ship that is cloaked in some fashion. Nor are there any Dark Metal signatures other than the ones we already know about. Moreover, if it is using the cover of a planet or other body, as we did with this system’s star, then it is unlikely to be close enough to affect your intended actions here.”
“Unless it’s hidden on the other side of Brahe—you know, hidden by the planet directly ahead of us.”
“That is possible, but I would then pose the question, why? That would only be a useful tactic against the particular course of action we are now following.”
Sentinel had a point, Dash thought. If the Bright knew their plan, then it would be a clever strategy. Stealth and surprise could go a long way toward changing the outcome of a battle, especially one in space where most combat ended in the complete destruction of a ship. Nothing was as unforgiving as the hard vacuum of space.
Dash let his gaze linger on the deep black stretching before him, then snapped himself alert. Space wasn’t just dangerous. It was unknowable. “Amy, you ready?”
Amy spoke up “I am. You’re doing the grab, but I’m ready to assist.”
“Countermeasures are in place per your plan, Messenger. I will silence the drone after you secure it. I would remind you to use the star for maximum stealth until the moment of contact.”
“Authorizing you for autopilot while under approach to the star. I’ll keep weps under my thumb at all times,” Dash said.
“Understood.”
“I am ready with countermeasures as well,” Tybalt added.
“Weps are hot if needed. Return path to Forge already plotted after the grab,” Leira said. "Between Tybalt and me, it’s all covered."
“Stay out of the corona and come in hard behind me. Keep your delta V within reason; that dwarf’s gravity well packs a punch,” Dash told Leira.
“Will do. We’re ready. Just like we planned,” Leira said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Beginning burn now,” Dash said. They were committed. It was bold—bordering on reckless—but it also offered a good compromise between quick, simple, and effective. It also had an aggressive, striking-back-at-the-Golden flavor to it.
And it felt right.
“We are nearly clear of the inner-system debris field,” Sentinel said.
Dash scanned the heads-up. The cloud of asteroids and other debris filling much of the inner system, the bulk of it falling behind. The hunks of rock, most not much bigger than the Archetype itself, formed an especially thick field, being as close together as only a few thousand kilometers. That sounded like a lot, but considering the velocities of the bodies, their unpredictable trajectories, and the enormous amount of speed the Archetype had stolen from its slingshot around the star, reaction time for maneuvers still came down to seconds. The piloting would have challenged even Dash, but Sentinel handled it pretty much as a background task.
“Okay,” Da
sh said. “Time to speed things up.” He drove the Archetype forward, running the drive up to full power. The only hint of the mech’s vast acceleration was a brief, tiny vibration deep in its Dark Metal bones.
“No indication yet that we have been detected,” Sentinel reported.
Dash nodded. They were far enough from the star now that their approach should be obvious to any Golden sensors that might happen to look this way. Still, he gritted his teeth and focused, eyes ahead as the target hove into sight.
Crap. They’d discussed all the things that could wrong with this, but it had seemed either all so academic, or just stuff they couldn’t really do much about. Now, every one of those potential disasters, minor to catastrophic, played through his mind like some horrifying vid.
“The Golden station is now in visual range,” Sentinel said, zooming in the heads-up. The long, dark cylinder of the station stood out starkly against the bright blue backdrop of Brahe’s icy atmosphere. Dash aimed himself straight at it, ignoring the mounting sense of impending disaster. He checked and confirmed that the Archetype’s shields were fully powered up, the weapons all charged and standing by.
“Target acquired,” he said to Sentinel, picking out a drone. Just as he did, another detached itself from the station and set off on a course he had the AI note and record.
Minutes passed, the station swelling in the heads-up, forcing Sentinel to step the zoom back down in increments. Dash blinked away sweat.
“Stand-by for capture,” Sentinel said.
“Augment my senses.” Dash turned his head slightly, eyes twitching in anticipation of a reality beyond what anyone would consider normal.
“Will do so,” Sentinel said, taking the cue to assist.
Dash forced himself to relax, letting the Meld start guiding his actions. By itself, his own physiology simply wouldn’t be up to the precise timing this would require. Grabbing his target drone at such a high velocity required actions within a window of a few thousandths of a second. At the last instant, he closed his eyes, letting the Meld itself be his sole interface with the universe outside.
He reached out and snatched the drone, ripping it free of the station.
Dash had expected and prepared for most of what happened next, but not all.
The sudden addition of mass to the Archetype, all of it off its centerline of flight, slammed its center of gravity to one side. They’d expected this, and Sentinel compensated with the Archetype’s drive, even as she began hacking into the drone’s systems to disable them.
Dash fired the distortion cannon at a point between the Golden station and the planet. Then he fired it again. And again. Each time, the Archetype had to drive even harder to overcome the sudden yank toward the momentary, artificial gravity well the weapon created.
The station, far more massive, was barely affected at all. But barely affected was enough to change its orbit a fraction, meaning it would eventually spiral into Brahe’s icy atmosphere. It also knocked its massive antenna out of alignment. Dash fired the dark-lance, slamming shadowy pulses into the station’s massive structure, ripping chunks out of it as glowing clouds of atomic dust began to spread, silent havoc in the dark around them. The station returned fire—and this was the part that had been setting Dash’s teeth on edge. They’d had no idea how heavily armed it might be, so the Archetype risked having to escape a torrent of deadly fire worthy of a battlecruiser.
Only a handful of weapons actually opened up, though, and most of them seemed configured for point defense. Blasts of energy raked the Archetype, flaring against its shields. A few, apparently fired through unSpace, actually detonated inside the shield envelope, but the mech weathered the damage and raced quickly out of range.
Well, that hunch had played out at least, Dash thought. Whatever this station was all about, it apparently wasn’t primarily battle. Its hidden, elusive nature had hinted at a dual purpose but there’d been no way to know for sure—not without getting up close and personal like this, anyway. It briefly made Dash consider trying to just destroy the damned thing now, while he was here—
Them with a flash of plasma, the drone, which Sentinel still sought to shut down, fired up its drive.
The Archetype immediately spun, hard, the starfield becoming a dizzying whirl of luminous streaks in the heads-up. Dash fought back with the Archetype’s drive, desperately trying to compensate. Their outward trajectory was the one that would take the mech to a safe translation distance in the least possible time, but the drone’s off-center thrust flung them thru a spiraling path entirely in the wrong direction. Worse, it kept them in range of the station’s weapons. Even point-defense systems could be a problem if they were able to fire on the Archetype long enough.
“Sentinel, shut that damned thing down!”
“I am working on it.”
The starfield had become a blur. Dash had no idea where they were headed now—into space, back toward the star, into Brahe’s atmosphere, or even into a collision with the station itself. He just couldn’t react to the drone’s wild blasts of thrust fast enough. In the meantime, blast after blast crashed into the Archetype, ripping at its armor, hitting Dash like hard body blows.
“Sentinel!”
“I am proceeding as quickly as I can.”
Dash shook his head. This wasn’t going to work. He’d have to release the drone and just get the hell out of here, before—
“Done,” Sentinel said. “The drone is now inert.”
Dash applied hard thrust, finally stabilizing the Archetype. More shots slammed home, but he was finally able to resume a fast course away from the station, toward the nearest translation point.
“Okay,” he said. “That was no fun at all.”
“I wasn’t aware that enjoyment was a measure of success in our struggle against the Golden. In the future, I will try to ensure our operations are more…fun.”
Dash blinked, then managed a weak smile. “You do that.”
“Incidentally, while neutralizing the drone’s systems, I learned several things you will find of interest.”
Back to business, Dash thought. “Such as?”
“These drones are not configured for combat. Rather, they appear to be intended to locate and harvest Dark Metal.”
“Okay, that explains why it wasn’t armed. It also means that the Golden are looking for the same stuff we are. Which isn’t really surprising.”
“Moreover, based on information contained in this drone, this station has only recently been activated,” Sentinel said. “It appears to have been triggered by the receipt of a signal approximately four months ago.”
Dash narrowed his eyes in thought then decided to play a hunch. “If you correct that for the best possible transmission time from the Forge, what date would you get?”
A precise date and time came to him through the Meld, one that made Dash nod.
“There we go. I think we can figure out the activation time for every Golden system in the galactic arm,” he said. “And it’s been right in front of us all this time. It was the signal sent by the Harbinger right before we fought it.” He took a breath and sighed. “So there it is. The official start of the war, thanks to the Harbinger.”
8
Dash landed the Archetype back on the Forge amid excited chatter. It wasn’t so much about his success and recovery of the Golden mining drone, though. Rather, Kai had found something in the data they’d recovered from Orsino—something big.
“You have to see this, Dash,” Conover said, as Dash dismounted from the Archetype. “It’s pretty amazing.”
The drone was already stashed in another docking bay in a remote part of the Forge, just in case it harbored any nasty surprises. Following that, Dash had hoped to be able to shower, have something to eat, and slump into some down time, but it appeared that wasn’t going to be the case. He gave Conover an after you gesture and followed him back to the War Room. Kai, Leira, and Viktor were already there.
“So I hear you guys have found som
ething that won’t wait,” Dash said.
Kai nodded vigorously. “The Unseen, in their wisdom, have given us what could be a decisive boon.”
Dash nodded back and plunked himself down in a chair. Even sweaty and tired, he enjoyed being away from the Archetype’s cradle. “Alright, well, don’t keep me in suspense. Show me what you’ve got.”
“Custodian,” Kai said. “Please show Dash the data we have been discussing.”
In answer, a translucent image popped into existence in the middle of the War Room. It depicted a dozen or so ships Dash didn’t recognize, orbiting a binary star system he couldn’t place.
He turned to Kai. “Okay, what I am I looking at exactly?”
“It’s called the Silent Fleet.”
“Ominous. What’s it mean?”
“It is an inert fleet of Unseen ships orbiting a binary star system known only by its catalog number,” Kai replied. “The closest approximation of their name, in our language, is Shrike. There are twelve of them, along with another four smaller support craft.”
As Kai spoke, the specifics of the star system’s location, details of what information was available about it, and anything Custodian could draw from his available data sources regarding the ships came to Dash over the Meld. He sat back as the information settled in and said, “Huh.”
“They’re warships, Dash,” Leira said. “All the size of conventional destroyers, and all armed with Unseen weaponry.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Dash paused, and then said, “Huh,” again.
“You don’t seem very impressed,” Viktor said.
Dash shook his head. “No, it’s not that. I mean, I am, but—” He shook his head. “This is a game changer. A fleet that size, all using Unseen tech. Shit, we could probably take over the whole galactic arm with that kind of power if we wanted to.”
