The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  “What does this mean?” Amy asked.

  “I do not have a firm conclusion,” Sentinel replied. “Perhaps the Golden are providing more of their technology to the Bright. Or perhaps they are finding more of it and incorporating it into their own. In any case, their use and understanding of it appears to be evolving, and doing so quickly.”

  “That’s not good,” Leira muttered.

  “Okay,” Dash said, waving a hand at the chart and its enigmatic, converging lines. “This moves us forward a bit. Better searching eight hundred star systems than—well, however many there are in the galaxy.”

  “There are between three hundred billion and four hundred billion stars in the galaxy—” Custodian began, but Dash cut him off.

  “Lots. Yeah, I get it.”

  “Dash, it’s going to take us months to investigate all those star systems with just the mechs. Longer, if we have to do detailed scans to find things that might be hidden. We can do it faster if we use more ships, but—”

  “But we don’t really want the Slipwing or the Snow Leopard out there alone if they find something,” he said, nodding. “Right. So we need to narrow things down.” He rubbed his chin. “Maybe somebody with a broader, less technological perspective on things would have some insights.”

  Leira gave Dash a puzzled look, but he held up a hand. “Kai, are you busy right now?”

  “I’m helping Brother Tomas with a difficult translation. Why, do you need something?”

  “Yeah. Can you come to the War Room? We need your input on something.”

  “This translation isn’t going anywhere. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Kai clasped his hands behind his back as Dash spoke, his eyes on the floor, occasionally nodding. When Dash finished, he looked up.

  “So you believe that the Bright, or a more advanced faction of them, are located in a particular region of space, as shown on this chart.” He gestured to the star chart and its converging lines.

  “That’s right. But it’s a big region of space, and we’re looking for ways of narrowing it.”

  Kai abruptly strode past him to the chart. He studied it for a moment, then reached into it, spreading his fingers, magnifying the volume of space where the lines converged. He studied it again, then pushed it, sliding the image to his left. After another moment of thoughtful, narrow-eyed study, he pointed at a particular system. “There.”

  Dash gave Leira a mystified look. “There? That one, specific star system?”

  Kai nodded. “Yes.”

  “Okay. Um, why?”

  The monk smiled. “I realize it seems strange that I just point at what seems to be an arbitrary star system, but there is a reason. Allow me to explain.”

  “Probably a good idea,” Leira said.

  “As you’ll recall, our Order, the Order of the Unseen, was founded almost two hundred years ago. I would like to say that the entirety of that time has passed in cooperative harmony, but early in our history we experienced a schism. One hundred and fifty years ago, one of our number, a monk named Solas, came to disagree with the Order’s approach to dealing with the Unseen.”

  “A hundred and fifty years ago,” Dash said, looking at Leira. “That comes not long before a hundred and forty years ago.”

  Kai gave a puzzled look. “I’m sure that means something, beyond—well, a trivial fact.”

  “It does. And I’ll get to it in a minute. First, though, what sort of disagreement did this Solas have?”

  “Based on the writings of my ancestral brethren from the time, Brother Solas believed that the Unseen should be viewed strictly through a lens of logic and order. Others came to think in the same way, and soon he had a following. According to the records, they shed their personal names and adopted a collective identity. The Verity. They became obsessed with order, straight lines, logic, and similar, highly structured ways of thinking. It doesn’t sound like they could fit in anywhere, let alone in an Order where the natural world was so important to our daily lives. After all, the Unseen existed in the context of the universe around them. And the universe is far from driven by strict logic and order. It is random. Life is too. So, for those who rejected the beliefs of the Verity, it was likely for them to embrace the random nature of existence. And the Verity hate that lack of control, even though it’s on a galactic—or universal—scale.”

  Dash gave a friendly nod. “Okay, that all sounds like something I’d discuss late at night after a few drinks.” He immediately held up a hand, though. “Sorry, Kai, if that sounded, you know, dismissive.”

  Kai chuckled. “You don’t need to tell me that it’s all quite esoteric. This was long before my time, of course, but even I believe that the Verity was engaged in what amounted to very abstract, even wishful thinking.”

  “It was the world as they wanted to see it, not how it really was,” Amy said. The others turned and gave her a surprised stare, and she shrugged. “What? I might be a grubby mechanic, but I have my deep moments, too.”

  “You certainly do,” Conover said.

  Dash turned back to Kai. “So you had this split, this schism. What happened next?”

  “Our records, frankly, try to make the best of a bad situation, but it is easy enough to read between the lines of what was written. Our Order went through a time of crisis, as both sides entrenched and began to fight. Not literally, of course, but relations between the Verity and the others became, let’s say strained.”

  “What? Conflicting religious beliefs leading to strained relations?” Leira said, rolling her eyes. “Say it ain’t so.”

  Kai chuckled again. “In any case, before the schism led to an actual civil war within the Order, the Verity chose to leave. They were, apparently, determined to pursue what they believed to be the ultimate truth of the universe, the path to which only began with the study of the Unseen.”

  “Naturally. And these enlightened souls went to the star system you just picked out, am I right?” Dash asked.

  “To the best of our current knowledge, yes.”

  “What a coincidence,” Leira said. “It’s in exactly the same direction as these new and improved idiots we’re fighting.”

  “Imagine that,” Dash said. “Custodian, retrieve everything you have on that system. Use the databases from the Slipwing, the Snow Leopard, and the Rockhound, too.”

  “It is done.” The star chart vanished, replaced with a more detailed image of the star system in question, surrounded by the relatively scant data available regarding it.

  “Thinking of some recon?” Leira asked.

  Dash shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got something a little more direct in mind. Custodian?”

  “Yes?”

  “Let’s talk about scramblers.”

  There was a brief pause before Custodian answered. “There are many things in the available data that could be called a scrambler. Can you be more specific?”

  Dash grinned. “Yes, I can. Allow me to explain.”

  11

  “So this system is about as boring as they get,” Leira said.

  Dash nodded, having to agree. The system Kai had indicated as the one to which the Verity had exiled themselves was yet another G-class, yellow-white star, with four planets: three rocky worlds, and one gas giant. Even the latter wasn’t especially impressive; it could have been any one of thousands of gas giants orbiting any one of thousands of stars. The system didn’t even have a name, just another forgettable catalog number.

  Dash glanced at the threat indicator. Nothing. He scanned the heads-up, seeing his small flotilla formed up and ready to start starward. The Archetype and the Swift were accompanied by Benzel and Wei-Ping aboard the Herald, and three of the smaller ships from the Silent Fleet, crewed and commanded by more of the Gentle Friends.

  Former Gentle Friends, Dash corrected in his own thoughts. It was important to start thinking of them not as the Gentle Friends, or Harolyn’s people, or Ragsdale’s people from Port Hannah, or the Aquarians. They were all part of the Cygn
us Realm. He needed to promote that to ensure they became, and remained, a cohesive, unified force.

  “Uh, Dash?” Leira said. “Are you waiting for an invitation from the Bright, or the Verity, or whoever they are to investigate their system?”

  “Oh. No, sorry. Got lost thinking about…names.” He paused again, then waved vaguely, the mech’s huge fist glittering like a dark mirror.

  “Names? Huh.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s go.” He kicked up the Archetype’s drive, accelerating in-system, aiming himself directly at the star. Leira eased the Swift into her accustomed position as his wingman, while Benzel deployed the Silent Fleet ships into a diamond formation. The ships themselves worked out the details, their networked systems ensuring that they could maximize the fire of all of them in any direction, while also remaining free to maneuver or evade.

  “So what are we expecting to find here?” Benzel asked. “Kai described what sounded like a bunch of navel-gazing monks thinking about logic and the universe. But we’re really expecting to find these Bright assholes, right?”

  “They might have started as navel-gazing monks, but yeah, I’m expecting those to be long gone,” Dash replied.

  “So they became the Bright,” Benzel said.

  “That’s the theory. Their logic and straight-line thinking really was just navel gazing, until they somehow got hooked up with Golden tech. That seems to have started them on the path to—to whatever they are now.”

  “But Kai hates the Golden,” Wei-Ping said. “The way he talks about them, you know, the Enemy of All Life and that sort of thing. So didn’t these guys hate the Golden, too? Why would they hook up with them?”

  “Before all this began, if someone had shown me a piece of Golden tech, and then a piece of Unseen tech, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference,” Dash said.

  “So you think the Golden just pretended to be the Unseen and fooled these Verity monks into trusting them and their tech,” Benzel said. “They manipulated them.”

  “That’s exactly what I think. The Verity were primed and ready to be in awe of the Unseen and their tech and the logic and order of it all, so it was probably easy for the Golden to play to their assumptions.”

  “So do you think they know the truth now?” Wei-Ping asked.

  “Don’t know,” Dash said. “Don’t know, and don’t care. If they do, then they’re choosing to side willingly with the Golden. And if they don’t, they’re still waylaying ships and sticking their crews and passengers into what amounts to a chamber of horrors.” He narrowed his eyes at the star ahead and the planets around it. “Either way, they have to die.”

  “Dash,” Sentinel said. “Now that I have had a chance to analyze this system in more detail, and calculate the relevant orbital and trajectory mechanics as they are affected by nearby star systems, it would appear that two ships—a stellar survey vessel on a charting expedition, and a freighter intending to refuel itself from the atmosphere of the gas giant—vanished in this system. Both did so just inside the orbit of the fourth, outermost planet.”

  Dash studied the heads-up. At their current velocity, they’d cross that planet’s orbit in about two hours. As Sentinel broadcast her conclusions to the rest of the flotilla, he decided to speed up their approach, but also make things more complicated for anyone lying in wait.

  “Okay, folks, Leira and I are going to accelerate some more so we start past the fourth planet in about half an hour. Benzel, you hang back about fifteen minutes. If we get engaged in the mechs, it means you should still be clear to maneuver.”

  “Got it,” Benzel said.

  “Sentinel,” Dash said, “Are those new missiles ready?”

  “They are, but I again urge caution. They have not been properly tested.”

  “Duly noted.” The concept for these new missiles had come to Dash while explaining his scrambler idea to Custodian. He’d worked with Sentinel and Custodian to rush the fabrication, so the Archetype only carried three and, as the AI had fretted, they hadn’t been able to test them at all, aside from a few computer simulations.

  Dash shrugged as he accelerated the Archetype, and he watched as the gap widened between the mechs and the ships of the Silent Fleet. It would be nice to be able to fight a war without facing any risks, but there it was.

  The Archetype and the Swift slid past the orbit of the fourth world.

  Nothing happened.

  “Dash,” Leira said. “I’m not seeing anything to indicate anyone lives here. There are no emissions from these planets that aren’t natural, and no atmospheric pollutants you’d expect from a technologically advanced settlement. I’m not doubting Kai, but maybe the Verity packed up and moved on at some point. Or maybe they died out.”

  “It’s possible. But until we—”

  The threat indicator came alive, cutting him off.

  “Okay, there we go,” he said. “Six contacts. Two are—aw, crap, Harbingers. The other four are…” He frowned at the data. “Those look like mundane hulls of human design, but they’re giving off all sorts of readings that show as Golden tech.”

  “Harbingers and ships full of Golden tech?” Leira snorted. “I guess that tells us if these Verity are in league with the Golden, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. And that they’re here.” He swung the Archetype onto a new heading, aiming himself straight at the Verity ships, Leira following. The enemy flotilla immediately split into two groups, a Harbinger and two ships in each. One continued to bore straight in; the other swung away from the star, apparently aiming to put itself between Benzel’s detachment and the mechs.

  “Benzel,” Dash said. “Do you—”

  “I sure do. You guys concentrate on the ones you’re already aimed at. You can leave this other group of assholes to us.”

  “Roger that.”

  A barrage of missiles erupted from the Verity ships. A standard tactic, it seemed, to try to diffuse enemy fire by offering a whole bunch of new and potentially deadly targets. It was a simple plan, and an effective one, but Dash had been expecting it.

  “Okay, Sentinel, ready two of the new missiles to fire.”

  “Ready. I have also reinforced structural integrity, in the event that they misfire.”

  “Got it, yeah. Let’s just cross our fingers, huh?”

  “I don’t have fingers.”

  Dash laughed. “I don’t know if you mean to be funny, but—”

  Pulse cannons erupted from the two Verity ships. At the same time, the Harbinger accelerated hard. The threat indicator was soon saturated with dire warnings. Dash ignored it, instead firing a barrage of missiles, including the new ones. He gritted his teeth.

  But they didn’t prematurely detonate, which happened in one of the simulations they’d run. Custodian had claimed to know what the problem was, and how to fix it, but Sentinel still urged real-world tests.

  Well, that’s what they were doing now.

  Dash flung the Archetype into a series of evasive twists, swoops, and spins. Leira did the same, scissoring back and forth behind him, covering his rear. They both snapped out dark-lance and nova-gun shots, pummeling the Harbinger. He considered it the bigger threat, being of actual Golden manufacture, not just augmented by their tech.

  “Five seconds to detonation,” Sentinel said.

  “Okay, Leira, brace yourself. We don’t know exactly how powerful these are.”

  A sudden, massive surge of acceleration slammed through the Archetype, making Dash’s teeth clash in a porcelain rattle. Both warheads detonated within milliseconds of each other, each generating a colossal gravity well—essentially, the effect of the Archetype’s distortion cannon, but much more powerful, and slightly more persistent. The Archetype fell toward the overlapping gravitational anomalies; Dash let it, but he kept himself on the brink of accelerating hard away in case the effect got out of hand. There was a slight chance that intense gravitation could actually poke a hole into space-time, and even the AIs weren’t entirely sure what
the effect of that would be.

  Closer to the epicenters of the detonations, though, the gravitational gradient spiked hard, hundreds, or even thousands of g’s difference over just a few meters. The whole swarm of oncoming missiles either plunged into the gravitational depths or were simply shredded. Then the gravity wells faded, revealing a sudden sprawl of spinning debris. Fragments of missiles whirled around the tumbling form of the Harbinger, which seemed to have lost power or been disabled by the blast.

  One of the Bright ships burned hard, trying to counter the sudden yank; the other just swept on, crashing into the debris field. Dash saw pieces of wrecked missiles slamming into ablative armor, chunks of gleaming metal whirling crazily with each punishing impact. But the ship kept coming, apparently out of control. It sideswiped the Harbinger, knocking the mech aside and losing another section of hull in the process.

  Leira’s voice was full of quiet awe. “Well, that was pretty damned effective.”

  “Dash,” Sentinel said. “One of the gravitational anomalies has not entirely closed. A distortion remains at the coordinates I’m sharing with you.”

  Dash frowned. Uh-oh. “What sort of distortion?”

  “As I had feared, the detonation of the gravity bomb, as you refer to it, has disrupted the normal interaction of space and time. I am detecting significant proton decay from dust and gas particles being pulled into the anomaly. Since protons are believed to have a half-life of ten to thirty-two years, it would be beyond unusual to detect even a single such decay anywhere in the galactic arm, over time spans of even millions of years.”

  Dash slowed the Archetype, at the same time veering it aside, giving the lingering anomaly—a point actually smaller than an atom—a wide berth.

  “Is it going to, you know, go away?” Dash asked. “Or did I just break the universe?”