"That's a really good idea, Ellie, but it's not that easy. These hashes are a combination of point of origin and point of destination. This is the only ship we know which has made a journey to and from Baru so there's nothing I can look up."
Ellie smiled at Malachi's praise.
Why can't any of this be simple? Tila thought, growing frustrated again. One minute it was good news, then bad news again.
"But they must have brought back the survivors to one of those systems," said Ellie, "So which one would be most likely?"
"Praxis has no inhabited planets, I think?" Tila said.
"It used to. It had asteroid mines years ago, but then there was that big battle during the war. I don't think anyone lives there now," said Malachi.
"That still leaves three systems," said Tila.
"But three of the most heavily populated systems in the Commonwealth. That's thousands of ships, and billions of people across nine planets."
"But it should be easy to find anyone that came back." said Ellie.
"So why has no one ever heard from them?" Malachi said.
None of them had an answer to this.
Unless they're hiding, thought Tila.
"I found one more thing in the data," he continued. "I don't think it helps us much, but it's, well, odd." The screen changed again to display a complex equation that looked like even more incomprehensible figures and symbols to the girls.
"What's that?" said Tila. Ellie just made a face.
Malachi tapped the screen to draw their attention to one part of the equation. "This is the Jump calculation, and this variable here represents the ship's mass. On the return Jump it's way higher than it should be."
"Compared to what?" said Ellie.
"The outbound Jump."
"More people?" said Tila.
Ellie peered at the nonsense on the screen, impressed that anyone could understand it.
Malachi shook his head. "No, it's something else. Even if it was full of people the mass reading wouldn't be this high. It's something heavy, though."
"Well you said it was a cargo ship," said Ellie. "Maybe it was cargo."
"But what cargo? And where did it go? Those haulers are for shifting things within their local system. That's why they don't have Jump engines. And what would they bring back? The colonists would need to keep anything they find to help make the mission work."
"You're giving me more questions than answers," complained Tila. "You've already told me this ship is from the colony mission. That's what I wanted to know. But all this...," she waved a hand at the screen, "this doesn't tell me what happened. It doesn't tell me where my father is."
"I know," Malachi agreed. "It's messy and confusing. But something else is bothering me."
Tila sighed. "What else?"
"Forget everything we've learned so far. We know the Far Horizon survived its journey and at least one ship has returned, but no one's ever heard of it. The only reason we know is because we found a ship with one chip which had been overlooked when everything else had been removed. And this ship was buried deep when most ships are integrated at the surface."
"You think someone hid the ship here?" said Ellie.
"But why?" said Tila.
"That's the real question, isn't it? 'Why?' I can only think of one reason."
Malachi took a deep breath and answered his own question. "When that colony mission failed, I don't think it was an accident."
Ten
The next three days passed by like treacle.
It was a quiet time in New Haven. No new ships were expected for another week, and local border issues seemed under control, so there was little work that required her help. The only novelty was the Orion, still under repair by Theo, and that was certainly nothing she could help with.
Tila had left Malachi's workshop more troubled than when she entered.
Malachi's conclusion thrilled and chilled her in equal measure. It meant hope, of a sort, but it was hope edged with fear and more questions. The possibilities it hinted at held a dangerous attraction.
She could easily jump to outlandish conclusions based on what Malachi had found, but if he was right then that truth demanded a response. Truth demanded that she do something, that she act, instead of remaining in this state of passive anger.
Until now, Tila had always felt she could overcome whatever life threw at her. She had done it before, many times, but this - this was something else. In the last twelve years, she had often acted rashly, often enough to have learned that the wise action was sometimes careful, but it was still action. She could still do something, achieve something. To only sit and think and wonder about the actions she did not take was something she could not do.
But there was no action she could take, and so she ached for something she could do. Something other than waiting for the enormity of their suspicion to crush her under the weight of its implications.
At times like this Tila felt the burning need to move. She could not dwell on problems. She worked through them, so she had retreated to her makeshift gym and was working out her frustrations there.
It was a spartan room, out of the way of other living quarters. It was too remote from the main population to be practical for storage or habitation. One day she would have to give it up as the population continued to grow, but for now it was her secret. Her own private getaway.
And it was perfect.
The beams and girders bracing the hull gave her somewhere to stretch and practice and train without bothering anyone and, more importantly, without anyone bothering her.
Today she needed to do something more vigorous than simply stretch. She was working out her frustrations on a makeshift punch bag.
She danced around it and punched, danced and jabbed, danced and kicked for as long as she could, until the ache in her muscles finally overtook the ache in her heart, and she could sleep.
But sleep was no willing partner tonight. Questions tumbled over in her mind, each one demanding attention and each one overtaken by the next.
How could the colony mission have been sabotaged? Who would gain and what would be their prize?
No mission of that scale had been launched in a hundred years, not since long before contact with earth had been lost.
The expense involved was, quite literally, astronomical. To construct even a single colony ship would cost tens of billions, and then there was ancillary equipment and craft to consider, as well as the crew and training required for the four thousand or so individuals on board.
And this mission wasn't taking any chances: the investors had provided enough funds and resources to build three ships.
Is Malachi asking me to believe that someone had the means and will to murder eight thousand colonists and destroy space craft worth hundreds of billions? For what? What could they possibly gain? It made no sense. Even if someone had the means to pull off a heist like this, why not steal all three ships?
What made one ship a more valuable prize than three? Was there something special about the Far Horizon?
What could someone gain that was worth so much death?
Her life had been anchored to that moment when her world had ended. She witnessed the explosion first hand, had felt and heard the terrible screams of people and tearing metal as the ships collided.
She remembered the fear and terrible dread that filled the observation room as the canopy closed, shutting out the light of the stars. It was a moment fixed in her life forever. She and too few others had lived through it.
Tila knew what happened. She knew what it meant.
Or so she thought. The data they found in the hauler had changed everything.
More questions burned in her mind. How did the ship end up here? Who put it there? What were they trying to hide by burying it so deep?
The rational part of her mind told her there was an explanation for everything. But another part of her sensed shadows in the darkness. Mystery and death did not easily lie together.
; She was sure something underhanded must have taken place.
Be taking place? But what? And how was the colony Jump involved?
So, what am I sure of? Today, everything is different, so what do I know? I know someone hid that ship here. That means someone knows it exists. Someone knows it came back from Baru.
So, they know travel between Baru and at least one other system is possible but they're keeping it secret. Is it the same person who hid the ship in the city?
Is it even one person?
Unless Malachi could unearth any more data from the chip it would be impossible to find out. As much as she had faith in his ability to perform the impossible there were still limits to what he could do. And even if he could find out where the ship had been going, how would that information help her?
It frustrated her that she didn't have the answers. It frustrated her more that she didn't know the right questions.
She punched the bag again, a fast combination she finished with an elbow strike to an imaginary head.
Suppose they did learn where the ship had been delivering its unknown cargo. Maybe they could go there and...then what? Wait weeks, or months, for another ship to arrive?
There must be another way, she thought. There must be something useful they can get from that stupid chip.
That had a rhythm she could use. She repeated it to herself.
Stupid chip – jab, jab.
Stupid chip – jab, jab.
Stupid chip – jab, jab, jab, jab.
Punch.
The only useful data they had extracted was the timestamps, but what use were they, really?
They showed that the hauler had made system Jumps after the Far Horizon vanished, but that was all. Would anyone believe that the three of them had uncovered some great mystery based on that?
Tila paused, and leaned against the bag. But it was impossible for the hauler to have returned on its own. Malachi said it was too small to have a Jump drive so that meant at least one other ship was involved.
It felt like a step forward, but only a tiny step. After all, where was the other ship?
Did knowing that add more pieces to this puzzle, or obscure the pieces she already had?
Why had no one ever heard from the colonists?
Why discover a new star, live to tell the tale, and then keep it a secret?
Why leave two colony ships to be destroyed? That would only make things more difficult once they got to Baru. They would have only a third of the resources of the complete mission. Who would throw away so much in time and lives and money?
Who could afford to?
So many questions. But there were answers too, some brightness in the night sky. Their discovery meant her parents were right. It meant the Jump tech her father had developed worked, and the mission her mother led was successful. No matter what history recorded. No matter what popular opinion believed. The Jump worked. The beacon design worked and the star Baru was viable. The hauler could not have returned otherwise.
Maybe there was something she could do with that knowledge. Her parent's reputations had been vilified - no, destroyed - in the aftermath of the tragedy. They could not defend themselves, and neither could an orphaned eight-year old child. But here she had the proof they were right. And it began to dawn on her for the first time that the attacks on their character stung almost as much as their deaths.
She had seen her parents die only once but each attack, each false accusation, each lie, was like living through it all over again.
They blamed the tragedy on faulty Jump calculations, and they blamed the calculations on her father. But her father's work was right. The Far Horizon hauler was the proof.
Although no one had blamed her parents for the explosion aboard the New Dawn her mother, in her role as mission commander, had been criticised for not saving more lives. To her critics, it mattered not at all that she had lost her own life along with thousands of others in a hopeless situation. The dead can't defend themselves.
But her father had been aboard the Far Horizon. His ship had Jumped first. Now she had evidence it had survived.
Maybe he had survived too.
But if he was still alive why had he not returned? Why had no one been heard from since?
Someone had to pilot the cargo-hauler back and it can't have been the only ship to survive. Some colonists had survived, at least, but where were they hiding.
What were they hiding?
Tila shook her head, flinging droplets of sweat around the room. She narrowed her eyes and punched again, and again, and again. She vented her anger in powerful strikes, yelling with each one until her back and shoulders begged her to stop.
Finally, she dropped to the floor, leaned back against the punch bag and calmed her breathing. She stretched and flexed her palms and fingers to ease the tension and cared nothing for the spots of blood seeping from her knuckles.
The realistic thing would be to assume her father was dead. Tila had heard all the scientific explanations when she was a child, although she had only come to understand them as an adult.
The Jump point was unstable and had collapsed to an infinitely small point. The shockwave would have obeyed the laws of physics and followed the direction of travel through the portal.
The deadly blast of energy on the far side of the wormhole would have devastated any ships to close to the event horizon.
The Far Horizon would have been caught in the blast. Crew occupying the inner compartments might have survived the initial blast because of the extra layers of shielding. But the system damage would be critical. Power and life support would have died, and so, a short time later, would the crew.
But anyone in the outer hull, such as the bridge, such as her father, would have been killed instantly by the high-energy particle blast.
Painlessly, they told her.
And he never came back. That was all the proof she needed.
Tila twisted her head from side to side, stretching neck muscles, keeping herself supple and moving, and knowing what would happen if she stayed still for too long.
So, some things can't be changed, but what can I do with what I know? Does anyone even still care? It happened so long ago. It's not like anyone still has a stake in a mission that took place more than ten years ago, is it?
Is it?
No, that's not right. Someone would want to know. People invested money in the mission. Rich, powerful people. It was too big for any government to fund alone. Those investors would want to know the truth. Wouldn't they?
Corporations go to court all the time to reclaim investments gone bad. Maybe to the right investors this knowledge was worth something, and maybe they would be able to redeem her parent's reputation and make it known that they did nothing wrong. The accident wasn't their fault. The mission should have been a success.
She remembered the ship they found, and the data within.
It was a success.
Everyone involved in the mission, everyone who had a stake in its outcome - investors, survivors and investigators - wanted someone to blame. After the accident, everyone had wanted someone to blame. What could be more human than that? But Tila had always known they had blamed the wrong people. Now she could prove it. The people behind this, those who truly deserved the blame for lies, theft and murder, were still out there somewhere, hiding around a distant star.
Tila felt lighter now, and the fog inside her head was clearing. She hated being aimless. She had always wanted hope, but now more than hope she needed a plan. Needed focus.
Finally, she had all three.
It was settled then. She would find the investors who funded the colony mission and tell them what she knew. The data chip would prove her claims.
The investors, in their gratitude, would use their vast resources to investigate further.
And maybe, eventually, she could vindicate her parent's memories and make sure history knew they were not failures.
It wasn't much, but it was a plan.
All she needed now was a ship.
Eleven
Malachi's ship was broken, and he didn't know why.
He lay on his back, underneath the raised body of the Rhino, making silent threats to a machine that refused to listen.
Holding a hatch open with one hand, Malachi scrabbled with the other until his fingers touched a wire. He tugged it closer until he could reach the infrasound probe attached to the other end. He switched it on and hurried to complete the job before the inaudible tone made him nauseous.
"Is it fixed yet?" asked a familiar voice.
He shut off the tool, grateful for the interruption, and slid himself out to see Tila's upside-down face studying the diagnostic equipment. She offered her hand.
"It's not broken, it's just not working," he said. He took her hand and pulled himself to his feet. "Where have you been? Ellie's worried about you."
"She worries too much. I'm fine."
"Are you?"
"I am now. I know what we need to do."
Malachi wiped the worst of the dirt from his hands and dragged over two stools so they could sit. "Tell me."
She took a breath, anticipating his likely reaction. "We need to find the investors in the mission and tell them what we know."
Malachi blinked. "That's your plan? Ok! Firstly, 'we'? Second, what will they do about it? Why should they even believe you? And third, how are you even going to find them?"
"Firstly, yes. Second, we can take the chip you found, that's our proof. They'll have to believe that, won't they?"
Her eyes told him she needed them to believe that.
"Look, I agree that the only explanation for that data is because a ship made the Jump back from Baru, but who's going to listen to us? We're nobodies. Who are these investors, and how do we get to meet them, anyway?"
"But we're nobodies who know something. Plus, I'm the daughter of the people who led the mission. That has to count for something, right?"
"How can you make them believe that? You could be anyone claiming a story like that. They won't have any reason to believe us, uh, you."
The Juggernaut (Tales from the Juggernaut: Act 1) Page 10
