The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  Dash had nodded again. Mines, mine layers—including a new, upgraded Void Stalker, because how could they not reuse the name?—missiles, weapons, armor, components for new ships, all of it was being manufactured and shipped out to the fleet as fast as it could be.

  It was all very impressive, and Dash gave Viktor an appreciative nod. But as he’d walked away, he’d reflected that no matter how much they produced and put into service, they’d no doubt always need more.

  He’d drifted alongside Benzel, the two of them hanging a few hundred meters away from the Forge, watching as a massive section of new armor for the Herald was slowly moved out of one of the fabrication bays. The Gentle Friends, along with maintenance remotes from the Forge, would ease it into place, work it up against the ship’s hull, and get it fastened, giving Benzel’s flagship another full layer of protection against incoming fire.

  Looking past the Herald, Dash saw the captured Verity battlecruiser, which they’d renamed the Retribution. Custodian, Sentinel, and Tybalt had worked long and hard at ensuring there were no sinister Golden back-door programs lurking in its electronic guts, ready to pounce and cause some catastrophe at the worst possible time. They had declared the ship clean just the day before, and now the Gentle Friends were moving in. At the same time, new components and weapons were being ferried out to her to repair her damage and bring her back online. She’d be a powerful addition to the fleet, which raised a question.

  “What do you intend to do with her?” Dash asked Benzel.

  “Eh? Oh, the Retribution? Yeah, she’s a damned fine ship. Think she’s going to be made flagship of B Squadron.”

  “So Wei-Ping’s new flagship?”

  “Yeah. Girl’s earned it. Which is saying something, actually.”

  “How so?”

  Benzel puffed a suit thruster and turned to face Dash. Through his helmet’s faceplate, he grinned. “Didn’t I ever tell you? She tried to kill me.”

  “What?”

  “Three times, in fact. Last time was the closest she came to success. She learns fast, that’s for sure.”

  “What hell was she trying to kill you for?”

  “That’s how you become leader of the Gentle Friends. You kill the current one.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. Makes sure whoever takes the job really wants it.”

  “So you killed someone to take over?”

  “Yup. Damned good guy, too. Hated to see him go.”

  Dash just stared at the panorama of the Herald and the Retribution beyond her.

  “Just so we’re clear, we’re not introducing that as our succession planning, got it?” Dash finally said.

  “You sure? Beats out running some long, drawn-out hiring process.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. But if you ever change your mind, let me know. Maybe I’d like to try a spin at being Messenger.” Benzel’s grin was now positively wicked—and obviously teasing.

  Dash smiled broadly. “Tell you what—you ever want to take over as Messenger, just let me know. I’ll hand the job to you. If you can handle the probe, of course.”

  “The…probe?” Benzel said, his smile fading.

  “Custodian, tell him about the probe,” Dash said.

  Custodian didn’t miss a beat. “Part of becoming the Messenger involves a probe, charged with moderate electrical current to carry vital information between subject and mainframe. Insertion occurs only after the removal of the candidate’s pants; at which time they are spread—”

  “Enough! Okay, to hell with being Messenger,” Benzel said in horror, then gave Dash a searching look. “You walk normally. How? I mean, with a probe—”

  Dash dissolved into laughter, waving his hands helplessly. When he recovered, his eyes were filled with tears of laughter. “Nicely done, Custodian.”

  “It was my pleasure. Please note that Benzel’s heart rate spiked when he thought—”

  “Okay, I get it. Hah. The pirate fell for it,” Benzel said, but a sly smile spread across his face. “Guess Custodian is becoming more human after all.”

  Dash shook his head. “Not human. Just more like a pirate.”

  He’d watched as mechanical arms worked around the Archetype, which Sentinel had brought to another fabrication bay. Custodian and Sentinel were installing another upgrade, a lattice of Dark Metal alloy, that would allow the mech to cause a localized spatial disruption around itself, not unlike the distortion-cannon. However, it could be sustained longer, and it could also be polarized, so that the gravitational burst could either be a well, causing things to fall toward it, or a peak, making things fall away from it.

  “Can we get this installed on the Swift as well?” Dash asked.

  “We can,” Sentinel said. “However, the geometry of the lattice must be correct to very low margins of error, so Tybalt is redesigning it to accommodate the Swift’s particular configuration.”

  “The intent is to install it in the Pulsar, the mech intended for use by Conover,” Custodian added. “However, it may not be possible to include it in the Talon, the mech intended for Amy, as it is considerably smaller and lighter.”

  “That’s fine,” Dash said, walking around the Archetype. Much of its armor had been removed, giving him a plain view of parts of the mech he’d never actually seen in detail: actuators, joints, and massive magnetic rams that worked like hydraulic pistons but were far more powerful, efficient, and durable. Dash found himself flexing his arm slightly, imagining the movements transferred to the powerful machinery gleaming under the bay lights.

  Crazy, he thought. Absolutely crazy. If anyone had ever told me…

  He was still smiling and shaking his head, utterly bemused, as he left the fabrication bay for the Command Center.

  Wei-Ping had rhymed off a long list of updates, sitreps, miscellaneous notes—and a few complaints. Dash, his feet propped on a console in the Command Center, nodded along. The complaints were minor, he thought—more bitching, really, than anything of substance. And he’d always heard, and believed, the conventional wisdom about bitching from your subordinates; if they were doing it, things were fine. It was when they stopped bitching and went silent that you needed to start looking for trouble.

  So Dash made his nods as sympathetic as he could over the minor complaints—the crew of the Snow Leopard were sure their comrades aboard the Herald were getting a better grade of plumato wine than they were, really?—then turned his attention back to weightier matters.

  “So the fleet is ready for action when, exactly?” he asked.

  “We figure another two days. Maybe three, depending on how long it takes to get the last repairs done to the Retribution.”

  Dash stood and eyed the big holo-image that was once more depicting the galactic arm and the broad trend of Verity activity along its axis. “Okay. Well, as soon as we’re ready”—he glanced at Wei-Ping—“and I mean literally as soon as we’re ready, I want to resume the offensive.” He walked up to the big image and pointed. “We’re there, and that’s the bulk of remaining Verity space, there. As far as we know, anyway. I want to make this a major push, maybe even the final one. If we can take the Verity out of the war the way we have Clan Shirna, that’ll go a long way toward something I’d really like to accomplish.”

  “What’s that?” Wei-Ping asked.

  “Getting the Golden involved in this war in person.” He looked back at the star map. “It’s something that’s been bugging me more and more. We’re seeing Clan Shirna, the Bright, the Verity, but not a lot of the Golden themselves.”

  Wei-Ping gave a fierce nod. “Yeah, that’d be sweet, kicking in a few Golden faces for a change.”

  Dash crossed his arms and nodded. “Couldn’t agree more.”

  Dash sat in his quarters, stretching out his legs and wiggling his toes, ready to finally enjoy a bit of his scant down time when a chime sounded, indicating someone was at his door.

  “Crap.”

  Dash levered himself out of hi
s chair and padded to the door. It opened on Harolyn, her finger just reaching for the door chime again.

  “Sorry, Dash,” she said. “Did I come at a bad time?”

  “No, it’s fine. What’s up?”

  “I’ve been told some things I think you should hear.”

  He frowned, but nodded and invited her in. She sat, extracted a data-pad from a satchel slung over her shoulder, and tapped at it.

  “I’ve finally finished interviewing all of the refugees we’ve had come aboard so far. I haven’t found anything that makes me think security concern. In fact, everyone that hasn’t revealed themselves as a spy so far seems clean. We’ve been able to confirm identities on all but three of them, and Ragsdale’s working on those through his contacts.”

  Dash gave an impressed nod. “Good work. So do we have any that are interested in staying around to help us?”

  “Yeah. All of them.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess when you flee a genocidal alien race that’s attacking your home, with nothing but the clothes on your back, you develop a certain—let’s call it a desire to strike back at them.”

  “Hey, there’s a reason we’ve renamed that Verity battlecruiser the Retribution.” Dash gave Harolyn a sidelong look. “But I don’t think you came here just to tell me that.”

  “Nope. Like I said, I talked to all of the refugees. Some of them had a lot to say. That includes rumors.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, some of them claim to have overheard people talking about joining the Verity, instead of trying to keep fighting them. Word is, apparently, that the Verity will spare people, even open up beneficial trade and mutual-protection agreements with them, in exchange for not helping their enemies.”

  “That would be us.”

  Harolyn nodded. “There’s more, though. A few of them mentioned that they’d heard of the Forge sometime before they even got here or had any idea what it was.”

  Dash leaned forward. “Really.”

  “Yeah. Seems word’s getting around that this place is designed for wiping out planets, and everyone and everything living on them, and that eventually humanity’s going to have to band together to stop us.”

  “Which is bullshit, of course,” Dash said, leaning back. “But that won’t matter.”

  “Not at all. Perception is reality, and all that.” Harolyn’s brow creased with worry. “It looks like the Verity are starting up an information war, Dash.”

  “More like a new information front in our current war.”

  “Either way, we’re not currently really fighting back against it, are we?”

  Dash sighed. “No, we’re not. But we’re going to have to.”

  “Yeah, we are,” Harolyn said. “Because if we don’t, and the Verity misinformation starts to take hold, starts to contaminate public opinion—”

  “Then we might find people starting to support—hell, even start to do stupid things. Things that actually run right against their own interests.” He shook his head. “We can’t let that happen.”

  “No, we can’t.”

  “And you believe these people?”

  “I do. There’s too much commonality between what people from widely separated places are saying. And I can’t find even a hint of a conspiracy among them. These are people who’ve never even had anything to do with one another before, all saying very similar things.”

  “Okay, leave this one with me for a bit so I can think about it. We’re going to have to come up with a way of keeping the Golden from making new allies—and that’s not the first time I’ve thought that today.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When I was talking to Wei-Ping earlier in the Command Center, it really started to come home to me that the Golden really haven’t been in this war much so far. If they can keep making allies, then that’s going to keep being true. I want to start forcing them to come to battle themselves… fight us directly.”

  An alarm cut him off. A moment later, Custodian said, “Medical emergency in docking bay 9-A.”

  “Custodian, what’s going on?” Dash said, an urgent apprehension tightening his voice. Docking bay 9-A held one of the captured Golden Harbingers.

  “It is Conover. He is badly injured.”

  Dash leapt to his feet. He realized he wasn’t wearing boots and grabbed them. Harolyn followed closely behind.

  Dash raced up to the last corner before the corridor turned into bay 9-A. Custodian had been updating him and Harolyn along the way; the Harbinger had not, as Dash feared, come to life and attacked, hurting Conover. Instead, Conover had done something—Custodian was still trying to determine exactly what—and been injured in the process.

  Dash wheeled around the corner. He’d already had his feet slide out from under him once, so he’d hopped along, jamming his boots on. As he rushed along the corridor, figures appeared in the entry to the docking bay. Dash saw Leira, who’d apparently also been caught out in her down-time clothes since she was wearing what looked like trousers pulled over pajamas with sandals.

  “What is it?” Dash asked. “What’s going on? Custodian said it wasn’t the Harbinger, but—"

  “It kind of was the Harbinger, it looks like,” Leira cut in, then nudged Dash back as Ragsdale and another middle-aged man—one of the refugees—pushed along a mag-lev gurney with Conover sprawled on it.

  Shortly after he’d first met him and brought him aboard the Slipwing, Conover had used his eye implants to interface with some Unseen tech, the star-destroying device known as the Lens. The resulting backlash had left Conover comatose, to the point he’d seemed dead.

  He looked worse than that now. Dash saw a pale, bloodless face framing eyes barely open, glassy and blank.

  “Coming through!” Ragsdale shouted, then turned to Dash as he passed. “Main infirmary!”

  Then they shoved past and hurried away.

  Dash took a step after the gurney but stopped himself. He desperately wanted to know how Conover was doing, but he had a more important duty first—making sure the Harbinger wasn’t a greater threat.

  Setting his mouth in a thin, hard line, he strode into the docking bay.

  The Harbinger hadn’t, as far as he could tell, moved a centimeter. It still towered over them, implacably and blankly menacing. Dash saw Viktor and Kai standing near the mech, examining something on a workbench set up near its massive right foot.

  “What the hell happened?” Dash asked. “Custodian doesn’t seem to know, which really bothers me all on its own.”

  Viktor leaned on the workbench. “We’re not too sure. Custodian says that Conover was doing something here, at the workbench, and then his internal scanners went offline in here. It left him blind to what happened over the next twenty seconds or so, until he was able to bring them back online.”

  “I happened to be nearby, so Custodian alerted me to the situation,” Kai said. “I got here as fast I could.”

  Dash looked at the monk who, like him and Leira, was dressed down—in the monk’s case, in what looked like a martial arts workout outfit of some sort. “Wait, you mean Custodian suddenly went blind to something going on in a docking bay with a captured freaking Harbinger in it, and you came running in here anyway?”

  Kai returned a look that said he didn’t actually get the question. “Of course. Why?”

  Despite the awful tension, Dash smiled and clapped the monk on the shoulder. “I’m glad you’re on our side, Kai.” But his flash of good feelings faded and he looked at the workbench. “Who set this up here? Conover?”

  “He and I both did,” Viktor replied. “We were starting some external examinations of this Harbinger. External examinations only, though, which is why I can’t explain this.”

  He pointed at an optical interface laying on the bench. “The transceiver is over there, attached to the Harbinger.”

  “Conover was wearing this interface when I found him,” Kai added. “I removed it from him immediately, but in retrospect,
perhaps I shouldn’t have. Maybe it only made matters worse.”

  Dash shook his head right back, emphatically. “No. Conover not being interfaced with this damned thing is way better than still being hooked up to it.” He turned back to Viktor. “So you had no plans to do this? Interface like this?”

  “No. Not any time soon, at least. The AIs are still working at making sure it's safe to start poking around the Harbinger’s internal systems to begin with.” Viktor scowled at the interface. “Conover decided to do this himself. What I don’t get is why.”

  “Same reason he did much the same thing right after we met him, with the Lens. Remember that?”

  “I do. I guess I assumed he’d have learned a lesson from that.”

  Kai sniffed. “He is young. The young sometimes need to make a mistake more than once to learn anything from it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Dash said, glaring at the interface. “Hell, I’m still like that myself sometimes. Custodian, can you add anything to this? Like why your internal scanners went out?”

  “Conover apparently triggered a security sub-system in the Harbinger, activating a damping field similar to the one the Golden drone that crashed into the Forge used to conceal its activities. Since I had already gained access to the Harbinger’s systems, however, I was able to activate a countermeasures program that shut it back down. In the time that took, Conover must have initiated the interface.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you sound the alarm or something as soon as you saw what Conover was doing?”

  “Because, on your instructions, Conover was given explicit access to virtually all Forge functions, and full latitude to study and evaluate enemy technology.”

  Dash, who’d been about to keep protesting, just closed his mouth. “Good point. You’re right. I did do that.” He glanced at Viktor. “I guess I figured Conover wouldn’t, you know, stick his brain into an enemy mech.”

  Viktor sighed. “Especially all by himself.”

  “If he had asked to do this, would you have allowed it?” Kai asked.