by J. N. Chaney
SNAP.
They all jumped and someone—Dash though it might even be himself—yelped, high-pitched, like a startled child. The Ribbon was now a complete ring, the ends joined seamlessly, so there was no way to even tell where the connection was.
The air over the Ribbon…now the Ring…shimmered.
“Oh, shit,” Dash said again, “what is going on…?” He looked at the others. “Any ideas?”
Three blank, wide-eyed shares and three shaking heads. Fat lot of use you all are—
The shimmer intensified, became a swirl of light and color that smeared everything seen through it into a whirling blur, then resolved into an image.
It was the Globe of Suns.
No…it was the Globe of Suns being assembled.
Because that’s what was happening. Stars were being…moved. At the same time, their planets were being disassembled, rocky worlds into fractured chunks of lithosphere and searing streams of metallic core, gas giants stripped of their hydrogen and helium, ammonia and nitrogen, and all of it being towed away by massive, grey ships that seemed made of huge, multifaced modules. The stars’ Oort Clouds, the vast fields of debris ringing the outermost edges of their gravity wells, were likewise repurposed, being shepherded en masse into the center of what was rapidly becoming a globe of transplanted suns.
They were watching the Pasture being assembled, as well.
All four stood dumbstruck, watching the sequence unfold. What must have taken centuries, maybe millennia, happened in moments. Humanoid figures in sleek, black suits and gleaming silver faceplates implanted what seemed like much smaller versions of the multifaceted modules making the ships into each of the comets and asteroids, then set them spinning about in what was now their ancient dance, a vast mandala of bodies kept on precise trajectories by technology whose nature they couldn’t even begin to guess. There was no way of knowing how large the figures were; they were portrayed without any meaningful scale, so they might have been human-sized, or they might have been giants.
Enraptured, Dash and the others just kept watching. Now the Globe of Suns, and the Pasture enclosed by them, was complete. The grey ships, vast, but strangely generalized and without detail, lingered a moment longer…then, as one, they all simply vanished.
A moment passed.
Dash finally said, “That…” But that was all he managed to get out. He couldn’t find any words to follow it.
They had watched technology that could move stars, dissect planets, rearrange orbits, change gravity, even alter the nature of space itself. What words could be said? What words even came close to being…enough?
“The Lens,” Conover said, his voice barely a whisper. He looked at Leira. “See if it…does anything.”
Leira, her eyes still fixed on the image of the Globe of Suns and the Pasture, nodded and extracted the Lens.
As soon as she did, the Lens flared with crimson light, while the image portrayed by the Ring changed.
It showed a single star—a rather nondescript yellow-white star of middling magnitude. After a moment, the circuits, or veins—or both—inside the Lens writhed and moved, changing their configuration; a moment after that, the star suddenly shrank, collapsing in on itself, then rebounded in a colossal blast that turned the whole image white.
“Did I…we…it…just do that?” Leira asked.
Again…there were no words sufficient to even begin to answer.
Now the image shifted again. This time, it showed a region of space. Dash immediately recognized the Pasture, and the Globe of Suns…but a series of bright crimson points glowed throughout it.
Dash looked at the others, then stepped closer and—very carefully, and with his toes planted and cramping, ready to push him back—peered at the image. It took a moment to work out the various stars, but he was able to map enough of the Globe of Suns in his mind, against the charts on the nav, to reason out that…
“That’s us,” he said, pointing at one of the red markers.
“It must be the Lens,” Viktor said.
“Or this Ribbon, or Ring, or…whatever the hell it is,” Dash replied.
Leira shook her head. “No…it showed us this after we showed it the Lens, and what the Lens does—which doesn’t seem to be in much doubt, now.”
“So these other points,” Conover said, stepping up beside Dash, “must be…what, other Lenses?”
“There’s got to be…two dozen of them,” Viktor said.
They just stared for a moment. But something plucked at Dash’s attention. One of the crimson points was outside the Pasture, and in Clan Shirna space.
“Well, if these are all Lenses,” he said, “then this one seems to be in the hands of Clan Shirna.” He straightened and looked at the others. “Which means that Nathis has one already. That xenophobic religious nut has a way to blow up stars.”
11
While Conover and Viktor worked to make sure they had a map—admittedly a crude map, based on unreliable scans and alien data of unknown accuracy—depicting everything they’d discovered so far in the Pasture, Dash and Leira pondered strategy.
They both brooded over the scanner. The Slipwing had come equipped with two remote probes—small, reusable drones that could be launched to investigate things and return data about them. Dash had only used one, once, and had mostly forgotten about them. They’d decided to launch them, sending them to exit the Pasture and its complex emanations of energy, and send back scans of what waited outside, along the most direct path back to the Shadowed Nebula. Only one worked, the other failing in some cryptic way that they didn’t have time to fix. The working one transmitted data for about thirty seconds once it was in the mostly-clear, before it went abruptly offline from an energy spike that was probably a particle beam. There’d be no shortage of those, because a flotilla of Clan Shirna ships lurked just outside the Pasture, clearly waiting for them to emerge.
Dash scowled at the data the unfortunate probe had managed to return. There was no hope of fighting their way through this armada of ships, which included Echoes, larger things closer to corvettes and frigates, and a large capital ship similar to the one from which Dash had rescued Leira and Viktor.
“Well, shit.”
“We can use the Fade,” Leira said. “That should get us through the worst of it.”
“Maybe. Trouble is, the deeper we go into unSpace with it, the more fuel it burns and the less awareness we have of real space for things like, oh, you know, navigating. But if we stay shallow, we leave more of our butt hanging in real space to be a target.”
Silence followed.
Finally, Dash said, “Fine. Okay. If we can’t fight our way through, then let’s do it the smart way.”
“Which is?”
“Oh. I was hoping you’d know. I’m just setting up the ideas here, not actually having them.”
“Great.”
Dash smirked. “Kidding. Hey, this is one of those moments that needs a little levity, you know?”
“So, do you actually have an idea, then? Or is just more of you trying to be funny? Which you’re not, by the way.”
“I’m hurt,” Dash said, but smiled. “Yeah, I do have an idea, actually. See, I’ve met Nathis’s type before, lots of times. He’s a greedy, power-hungry asshole. Sure, he’s wrapped it up in religious finery, but in his nasty little heart, he’s still just a greedy, power-hungry asshole. So let’s use that against him.”
“How?”
“Well, first, we let him know that we’ve got a lot of Unseen tech aboard. Not just the Lens, now, but also the Ribbon, and those other bits and pieces of what might be scrap, but might also be amazing tech. That guarantees two things.”
“And those would be?”
“First, he’s not going to want us destroyed, because that might lose him that tech he wants. He’s going to want us disabled, which means he’s going to want our engines targeted as a priority. That means getting in close, and firing at us in specific ways that we can anticipate. And
second, when we are disabled, he’s not going to let anyone else board us before he does.”
Leira made an impressed face. “Huh. That’s actually quite insightful.”
“Hey, I’m not just another pretty face.”
“So you’re saying he’ll be predictable,” she said.
“Damn right he will. So, we come up with a plan to work around his predictability.”
“Okay, and do you have such a plan, or is this just another vague idea.”
Dash flashed her a grin. “No, I actually have a plan.”
Dash looked around the Slipwing’s cockpit. He and Leira were belted in, as was Conover, behind them. Viktor had elected to remain closer to the engineering bay, in case anything needed a fast fix.
“Everyone ready?”
Leira and Conover nodded. Over the comms, Viktor said, “As I’ll ever be.”
“Okay, boys and girls, let’s do our thing.”
Dash fired up the fusion drive, thrusting the Slipwing toward the edge of the Pasture.
Minutes passed. Dash had already powered up the four missiles the Slipwing carried, along with both particle cannons. All the weapons showed a ready status, which was both good and a little surprising, because one of the missile launchers had been wonky since he’d acquired the ship. Viktor did damned good work.
The scanner continued to produce mostly uncertain fuzz, then it began to clear, slowly peeling back the interference to reveal the terrifying sprawl of the Clan Shirna fleet ahead.
“Was kinda hoping they’d have given up and gone home,” Dash said, turning to the fire control.
“They’re not likely to do that,” Conover said. “They’re simply too invested—”
“I was kidding, kid,” Dash snapped, tapping a control to start the missiles running the program Viktor had created for them, from an idea Leira had proposed. After a moment, all the missiles came online and Dash launched them. The Slipwing shuddered slightly as the four missiles that leapt from the launchers oriented themselves so they wouldn’t hit the ship with their exhaust, then sparked up their fusion engines and shot away.
Dash reoriented the Slipwing but didn’t ramp the drive up to full power—yet. Instead, he watched the missiles’ telemetry. They were talking among themselves just as they’d intended them to, rearranging their positions and trajectories in concert, making what were already small targets that much harder to hit while ensuring they found and attacked the optimum target.
Particle beams lanced out, seeking the missiles. They dodged and wove quickly, frustrating the aim of the Clan Shirna weapons. Nothing targeted the Slipwing yet, though, just as Dash had called it. They were still much too far away to allow accurate targeting of their engines. Still, Dash kept a close eye on the pattern of shots, ignoring the tight clench in his gut and refining the Slipwing’s course.
A missile vanished in a flash as a particle beam finally found it. Okay, they were harder to hit, not impossible.
A second missile exploded.
“Shit,” Dash muttered it. If at least one of the missiles didn’t get through…
The two remaining missiles abruptly changed course, pulling g forces no inertial suppressor could have offset. Dash saw the new target they reported. So did Leira.
“Let’s hope that works,” she said, and Dash grunted his assent, changing the Slipwing’s course to match the new trajectory.
Both missiles raced toward a frigate. The ship pumped out particle beam shots, and now opened up with its point-defense lasers. One of the missiles decelerated, letting the other speed ahead of it. The leading missile streaked through the barrage of fire aimed at it then detonated a few kilometers short of the target with a dazzling flash, followed by an expanding cloud of plasma. The second missile plunged into the cloud, then through it, the glowing gas preventing the frigate’s fire control systems from maintaining a lock.
And now it was too late. By the time the ship had reacquired the missile, there was only time for a shot or two, then it slammed into the frigate with a spray of debris, a puff of venting atmosphere, then another massive fusion explosion that blew the Clan Shirna ship to whirling fragments of glowing debris.
“That was a really good idea,” Conover said, “using one missile’s explosion to cover the other’s final approach.”
“Hey, I’m not just another pretty face,” Leira said, but she was looking at Dash as she did.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re brilliant,” Dash shot back, giving her a nod of acknowledgement as he did. But his eyes were still on the Slipwing’s controls. He aimed for the center of the debris cloud that was now a glaring hole in the Clan Shirna blockade. Irradiated chunks of what had once been a ship spun past the Slipwing, Dash weaving his way among them. Particle beams had opened up, and now they were close enough to at least some of Clan Shirna ships to allow them to distinguish their engines as distinct targets, but the ionized gas and hunks of debris threw off their targeting. Then they were through the Clan Shirna line. Dash applied full power and the Slipwing leapt away, heading for the Shadowed Nebula.
“We have four Echoes and that big capital ship coming after us,” Leira said. “Other ships, too, but they’re too far back to catch up.”
“The Echoes won’t follow us into the Nebula,” Conover offered. “They’re too small and not unSpace capable.”
Dash nodded. “As far as Nathis is concerned, it doesn’t matter. His big ship will handle the Nebula much better than ours, and he’s got fuel to burn, while we have to watch every drop.”
“So he will eventually catch up to us.”
Dash nodded again. “Of course he will. In fact, I’m counting on it.” He unstrapped himself and stood. “You got the Lens, Leira?”
She dug it out, but hesitated to hand it over. “Are you sure about this? I really hate to lose this.”
“We know the locations of a whole bunch more.”
She frowned at Dash, then at the Lens, then sighed and let him take it. “Okay, I’ll fly the Slipwing from here. You go do what you’ve got to do, Dash.”
He nodded, but lingered a moment with his eyes meeting hers. Then he turned to Conover. “Okay, kid, let’s go.” He lifted the Lens. “You need to show me how to use this thing.
The Slipwing raced into the Shadowed Nebula, passing through ever thicker clouds of dust and ionized gas. These were nothing more than an annoyance, degrading the quality of their scans but not really presenting an obstacle—at first. But as time passed and they plunged deeper into the Nebula, the clouds of charged particles, dust, and larger chunks of debris became ever larger and thicker. The Slipwing’s navigation deflectors, powerful magnetic fields intended to divert dust and gas around as he swept through space, could deal with much of it. But they couldn’t stop all of it; soon, her hull began to register impacts—miniscule collisions with dust particles. At her current speed, striking even a tiny grain of dust released proportionally vast energy. The Slipwing’s armor began to abrade; worse, more sensitive components would soon start taking damage. And there was worse—much worse—ahead. Whatever forces had created the Shadowed Nebula had left much larger pieces of debris lurking amid thick, obscuring clouds of dust, ship-killers that couldn’t been seen or even detected until far too late to avoid.
As Dash hunkered in the crew hab and listened to Conover, something thumped against the hull, hard. Dash winced and Viktor said, “We should use the Fade. Conover and I tweaked it so it should use less anti-deuterium, at least at a low setting.”
“It would help us avoid being, you know, smashed into little pieces,” Conover said.
Dash nodded and Viktor went forward to talk to Leira. Conover continued to explain the details of what he’d been able to discern about the Lens. The familiar rumbling whine of the Fade rose, and the Slipwing’s passage suddenly seemed to smooth out. Dash hadn’t even really realized how much noise and vibration had filtered through the hull from collisions and impacts, until both were gone.
Viktor returned. “Okay, Dash
,” he said, “I’ve made sure the crash beacon on the emergency pod is working—oh, it wasn’t, by the way, so if you’d have needed to use it, you never would have been found.”
“Oh. Well, that sucks.”
“But it is now.” Viktor’s face became a little disapproving, like he was letting Dash know what he thought about shoddy maintenance. “Anyway, I’ve boosted the power input to it, so it should have the range you wanted.”
“Perfect. And Conover here has clued me in to the workings of this thing”—he gestured at the Lens—“so now it’s time to poke Nathis with a stick.” He looked toward the ceiling. “Hey, Leira, how are our friends back there doing? I assume we’re still being chased?”
“I was just going to report on that,” her voice came back. “Before we went into Fade, I saw the Echoes give up and fall back.”
“Heh, they can’t take the Nebula, huh?” Dash said.
“Since I saw one of them pulverized by a collision with something, I’d say no. They aren’t meant for this type of flying,” Viktor said.
“How about the big ship? The one we assume Nathis is on?” Dash said.
“Between this Nebula and using the Fade, our sensor data is basically shit, but, yeah, it was still in the chase and, yeah, still seems to be. Gaining on us, too. Slowly, but definitely gaining.” Viktor was grimly confident of his assessment.
Dash nodded at the air. “About what I expected. Let us know if anything changes.”
“Will do,” Viktor said.
Unlike the little Echoes, the big capital ship was more than capable of taking on the Nebula. Not only did she have far more bulk and armor, but she could project much more powerful navigation deflectors. She was also far more resilient than the Slipwing; only the Fade gave them enough edge to stay ahead. And even that wouldn’t last. Nathis could burn fuel at a rate Dash could only dream of. The big ship might have far more mass, but she also had far more powerful engines and could burn them for much longer.
