Darklight Pirates

by Robert E. Vardeman

  A quick motion brought up a different panel. His hands passed over the controls releasing the locked hatch onto the bridge. Not only Sullivan but Cletus and Leanne boiled in, all demanding at once to know what had happened.

  "As you were," Cletus snapped to silence both the captain and the envoy from Far Kingdom. "What were you thinking, Father? You're not an astrogator. If you wouldn't let Captain Sullivan keep the helm, I could have. I'm qualified."

  "We're in a system so secret I cannot divulge its location. By making the Lift myself, none of you can give the coordinates if you are ever captured."

  "A few minutes work with the positioning computer will reveal our location to anyone curious enough to ask where we are," Leanne said.

  "It will take more than a few minutes. I have locked the equipment. Any attempt to determine coordinates will alert me immediately." He knew the safeguards went beyond that. The numbers no longer existed, but he wanted to know if Leanne would make the effort to find out. Or Cletus. Or Sullivan.

  "And?" Cletus gritted his teeth.

  Donal had never seen him so angry.

  "I will throw anyone trying out the airlock without a suit." He pulled off the control helmet and settled it into its cradle. Sullivan immediately took the helm and settled into the captain's chair. "Even with a suit, you wouldn't survive long. The entire system is awash in radiation."

  "The warbot armor would protect me." Cletus stood with his arms crossed. The dark look he shot his father was almost comical, a petulant child denied a special treat.

  "No, it won't." Donal stood and motioned for the captain to take command once more. "Bring us into the port on the dark side of the planet. Try not to expose us directly to the red star and its companion more than necessary."

  "What companion?" Sullivan shifted the control helmet, brought up new panels and finally looked at him. The solar image blazed holographically in the middle of the bridge as she scanned the system. "There's only the red giant."

  "You're missing the neutron star, but get us down and the research staff on-planet can explain better than I ever could."

  "Land? You want me to land the Shillelagh on the planet? That's dangerous. It's better if we go into an orbit, though it would be an eccentric one since the planet is elongated. The major and minor axes are─"

  "The exposure would fry most of our electronics. The research post is equipped for a vessel this size. It routinely docks cargo ships filled with methane, ammonia and whatever else they mine on the outer gas giants."

  "There isn't much atmosphere," Sullivan said, working her panels to get what information she could. "Some sort of structure has been built in a ring around the planet. I'm detecting small steering jets holding it in precise orbit. Is that a space-borne cyclotron?"

  "Avoid getting within a thousand kilometers of the accelerator ring. You have no idea what that cost to build," Donal said.

  When the captain cocked her head to one side and began barking orders to the other officers trailing onto the bridge without further questions, Donal knew she had been contacted by the approach coordinator on Scrutiny. He reached to the HUD and entered the authorization code. When the indicator blinked green, he stripped off his gloves and dropped them in the cradle behind the captain's chair.

  Donal motioned to his son. He hesitated when Leanne trailed behind, alert to whatever might be said. For a moment, he considered ordering her away, then saw the glances between them. Whatever he told Cletus, even in confidence, would be shared with Leanne Chang. Donal wondered when that bond had been forged since it hadn't been as obvious prior to leaving the Ballymore system. They had fought together and had saved each other from serious injury─even death. That was one bond, but he felt that a more amorous one had developed from the way they brushed shoulders and tried to appear nonchalant about it. Even the set to their bodies told him a great deal. If he had the ship's computer analyze the body language, it would not give him any more information than he gathered through his own observations.

  In the com room adjoining the bridge, he sank into the com officer's chair and let the others stand. The tiredness that filled him was more intense than anything he had ever experienced, even when he had participated in iron man competitions three decades earlier. He had won his share of those, and he had certainly won again today, getting them away from Weir's interceptors.

  "I deserve to know where we are. I am Commander in Chief Armed Forces. Either trust me or remove me." Cletus looked more belligerent than usual. Donal thought part of the aggressively fierce attitude was intended to impress Leanne. If so, his son had a great deal to learn about what sparked her emotions.

  Donal saw more than bluster would be necessary to accomplish that. He had never encountered anyone quite like Leanne before. The closest he had come was Kori. The two shared a banked fire that could scorch worlds if brought out. He closed his eyes for a moment, tried not to think of his wife and daughters back in Burran, and failed. In spite of Cletus' report on the abortive prison compound raid, he refused to believe Kori was dead or even a prisoner.

  "Cool down," Donal said. He was exhausted physically and mentally, and his patience wore thin. "If it becomes necessary to give you the coordinates, I will do so, with all the proper checks to be sure you cannot reveal them should you be interrogated."

  "An interesting development," mused Leanne. "A reverse k-chip? Your brain will be erased if undue coercion is applied?"

  Donal ignored her. She cut to the heart of every matter with seeming ease. With such insights, she might be using Cletus as a stepping stone to more than information for her Supreme Leader. After all, she had been included in a briefing he would rather not give even to his own son. For the first time, he wished he had learned more of her background before leaving Far Kingdom. Out here, hundreds of thousands of parsecs away from both Far Kingdom and Ballymore, he had no way of accessing a database with that information.

  "What's she mean, Father? Your memory will be erased if anyone tries to find about this system?"

  "It's called Scrutiny. The planet, at least. There is a star catalog designation for the red giant and its companion."

  "There is no sign of a second star. You mentioned a neutron star. Such a gravitational field would have become apparent the instant we Dropped."

  "Comrade Chang, be quiet."

  "I won't have you talking to her like that, Father!"

  "I can order you both put in the brig." Donal took a deep breath. He let their attitudes annoy him. Cletus was angry and defensive about Leanne, and she retained an analytical detachment that any scientist would be pleased with. He thought her more as a spy now than a scientist, though she made no effort to hide how she soaked up data from all around her.

  "I'm sorry," Donal went on. "You're right about the difficulty of a Lift and how it wears you down."

  "Doing it without a crew to back you up is especially exhausting," Leanne said.

  "Captain Sullivan will have us docked soon enough. There is only a slight atmosphere on Scrutiny, and it is toxic, more plasma than gas. The research station itself is mostly underground, though the domed part above looks grand. The buildings poking up, towers and array dishes, all feed into the accelerator ring orbiting Scrutiny. As to the neutron star, it's lodged in the middle of the red giant. This is a double star system of the most peculiar kind."

  "A TZO system," Leanne said. "I have heard of such a thing, but no Far Kingdom astronomer or explorer has found one."

  "What's that? TZO?" Cletus looked confounded by what he heard.

  "It's a Thorne-Zytko Object, though some astronomers seem to refer to the O as the red giant's classification. I'm not an expert." Donal tried to remain calm. As in so many things, Leanne appeared a lap ahead of him. Had she overloaded her brain with k-chips or was this preternatural knowledge of her ... natural? He watched her closely, trying to fathom what went on inside her head. That she moved a little closer to his son gave Donal a new factor to use. Cletus was drawn to her as much as she w
as to him.

  "It is O-star then?" Leanne pursed her lips as she processed the information.

  "The theoretical basis for such a system goes back to earth almost five hundred years. There might be a dozen in the entire Milky Way, but none was ever found there." Donal paused for effect. "We aren't in our galaxy any longer. We're in the Lesser Magellanic Cloud."

  "The theoretical limit for a StringSpaceLift," she said, nodding. "Or have you pushed that farther? No, the Shillelagh is not a specially equipped exploration vessel. The theory is shaky, though all the probes Far Kingdom has sent out to this limit never returned."

  "How many were there?" Donal saw her start to answer, then bite back information that would give away the extent of her home world's ambitions among the stars. "It's possible your ships were more interested in discovering alien races instead of basic research─and disturbed them."

  "Hostile aliens?" Cletus perked up, finding a topic of more interest. "The only ones we've discovered were planet-bound, and they were not overtly antagonistic."

  "Six," Leanne said.

  "Five." Cletus looked hard at her. "We've only found five alien cultures."

  Donal wondered if this was an inadvertent slip on Leanne's part or if she dangled bait to gain more information. All five of the races known to Ballymore had been discovered over the past fifty years. In her quest for ever more information, she might have dropped an untruth to see what response it provoked.

  "I mean that we have encountered six hostile alien races. Taken with the five known to your world, that equals eleven." Leanne glanced around the com room, as if the screens would light up with data about a twelfth.

  "There's no native life on Scrutiny," Donal said. "The conditions so close to such a massive star prevented any intelligent life, at least. We came here to set up a basic research outpost."

  "The neutron star once circled the red giant?" Leanne looked upset. "That does not square with any planetary dynamics I have learned."

  "This system is atypical in many ways. If you like, the researchers can tell you what you want to know." Donal reached out to the comlink and worked to tap in a long coded sequence. "That warns them I'm aboard and to get suitable quarters prepared. They have quite a base here, but it is Spartan compared to what I'm used to, even aboard the Shillelagh." He chuckled. "And it lets them know we're not a pirate ship."

  "Pirates out here? I'm not even sure where here is," Cletus said. He face broke into a smile as he understood the precautions. "You gave them acknowledgment we didn't steal the coordinates or forced the ship to come here."

  "This is a top secret facility. The people here volunteered for a one-way trip. All are dedicated scientists in many fields ..."

  "And their children? Or is it possible with the radiation that floods this world for healthy births to occur?" Leanne glanced at Cletus and then back. She forced her face into a neutral mask, but Donal understood her concern.

  "The bulk of the planet shields everyone from the worst of the radiation, and those born on this world are normal." He chuckled at that. "As normal as possible being raised surrounded by the top scientists in a hundred areas of cutting edge science."

  "How did you get them away from Burran without causing an uproar?"

  "Scrutiny originally was settled over a span of two decades. And I am quite capable as Programmer General. The yearly census is a minor subroutine. Those who came here either never existed as far as Burran is concerned or, if they were well known, officially they died of natural causes or in terrible accidents."

  "But the ships necessary to ferry so many here," protested Cletus. "I would have noticed."

  "Most of the transfer of such intellect happened before you began your training. Some suspected. I think Weir did, but his inclination was more toward traitors being executed than scientists hidden away for the purpose of advancing our knowledge. Or maybe he thinks I am a gigantic fraud and stole the money for my own use."

  "Your secret knowledge. What have they found?"

  Donal received the return ping.

  "We're docking in a few minutes. Quite a reception committee will be there to greet us. I think you'll find notable discoveries have been made." He herded Cletus and Leanne from the com room onto the bridge. Under his breath he said, "Truly extraordinary discoveries."

  Chapter Nineteen

  "It's stealing, Mama. I don't want to do it anymore." Bella sat on the floor in the corner of the room, knees drawn up and hugged tightly to her chest. She tried to bury her face but kept looking up to see her mother's response.

  Kori Tomlins stared at the desk display in front of her. Using a full HUD posed problems. Energy use, bandwidth, the chance that Weir had learned enough to track them down through the layers of the master computer Bella tapped so easily. She dared not underestimate Weir after he had consolidated his power so quickly. Bella was a superior programmer, but Weir sat in the capital with all the trappings of power around him. Her only consolation was that Aaron Riddle had wrested control of the military from him and posed a threat to those in power, should Weir falter.

  And he would. She would make certain of that. After Weir failed, Riddle fell quickly because he was such a fool.

  "The exchequer never noticed our withdrawal."

  "It was billions, Mama! Even a small amount will show up in the weekly audit. That much will stand out like a big orange thumb, no matter how I tried to bury it under tons of other numbers." Bella stirred, relaxed a little, but did not stand. She looked pathetic.

  Kori held back her contempt for such weakness. Ebony would have been a more stalwart ally, but her programming skills had been feeble compared to Bella's. As hard as it was for her to believe, genetics did enter into the ability to mesh with the computer's neural network and use it to the fullest. Courage wasn't required to loot the nation's vaults, transfer money into thousands of accounts and even give both Eire and Uller unexpected influx of funds to egg them on with their military adventurism along the borders. To date, Riddle held them at bay, but the Low Guard was spread thin. Cletus had insisted on developing the High Guard, which had been necessary to combat the growing threat from pirates based in the asteroids, but it had sapped the Low and Middle Guard of both funds and competent personnel. Who wanted to slog about on the ground or drive a tank when bonuses and quick promotions were common among the space force? Nothing matched being a captain of a cruiser or dreadnought, not even flying the trans-sonic fighter-bombers of the Middle Guard. Warriors wanted action, not barracks time and endless spavined training exercises.

  "We are in a fight for our lives. Do you think Weir will let either of us live if he catches us?"

  "He only imprisoned us when he took us prisoner before."

  "Do you want to live in a cell the rest of your life? The only reason we were locked up was that he needed to know what we knew. What I know. If he had found out, we would have been turned to plasma so our bodies would never have been found."

  "We can make peace with him. I know it, Mama. Let's try."

  "He knew that your father and brother weren't dead and used us as bait." Kori tried to hold back her fury and failed. She swept her hand through the holograms on the desktop and caused them to shimmer and shake in resonance with her anger. "He wanted to show how cowardly the men in our family were. They left us to die, Bella. They left us, your father and brother."

  "No, no, it doesn't seem possible."

  "It happened. You would have seen it yourself if you hadn't been so busy being afraid." Kori waited for the holograms to reform. She reached out and moved some more gently. As she pushed, they slid to new positions.

  The markers showed how Eire deployed guerrilla units to attack the aqua culture farms with an eye toward annexing them, but another segment of the virtual display occupied her attention. She had fed money into a dozen different partisan urban groups opposing Weir. For the most part, the people only slowly realized Donal Tomlins no longer controlled their fate, keeping the flow of commerce undisturbed and i
n their interests. No matter how Weir claimed the former Programmer General had died in an unfortunate Drop accident, the people's day to day existence had changed little. They cared little who kept the gears of commerce moving and grinding if it didn't affect their bellies or bank accounts.

  Kori sneered at that. She had thought Donal worked for the people. She had even believed that. Now she knew he had thought of himself first. She had benefitted and that galled her even more now. It was as if she were a carrion bird pecking at the carcass killed by another, killed by Donal for his own pleasure. She fed well enough, but it was off the pickings of another's efforts.

  "It's time to set things right. These groups appear to attack in the capital on their own. I have fed them money and plans for a coordinated attack that will let us into the palace during the furor. Let Riddle declare martial law. It won't matter once we reach the Residence's subterranean rooms. From there we can use the safe tunnels to reach Weir." She clenched her hands until her forearms ached. Only force of will let her relax. "He will be easy prey if he is diverted by a half dozen rebel groups attacking in concert."

  "You're going to kill him? What then, Mama?"

  "You were trained to be Programmer General. With Weir gone, the entire country will collapse without anyone directing the master computer. Weir has effectively hobbled those under him who might take over. You told me about your father's control algorithm. Can you open it and take complete control?"

  "I know his techniques. Some hints that he dropped make me think it's possible, but I don't know without actually examining it and trying to find the source code. It might take days or weeks to open the kernel and get inside to recode it."

  "You are as adept as Goram Weir. More than him since you are bred for the job. He seized power and reduced the ranks of the junior programmers so only those loyal to him remained. Or those who wouldn't oppose him. The most experienced were all killed or sent into hiding."

  "I can't do it all myself, even with the control algorithm cracked open. I'll need most of the inner cadre Papa depended on."