Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Their posture looks unchanged,” said Geish from Scan. “We’re going to be getting it from multiple sides if they fire on us.”

  “If these jump engines work the way Rooke says they do,” said Erik, “they can shoot at us all they like and it won’t matter.”

  The manoeuvre looked relatively simple, provided everything worked the way all the dry-runs and system-checks said they should. And therein lay the drama. Erik sipped from the water tube at his shoulder to ease his dry mouth, and tightened his hands on the twin control grips. One twist, one flick of a thumb or finger button, one blink on a holographic icon, could activate any of a hundred systems that could either save everyone’s lives, or get everyone killed. In all the galaxy Erik did not think there were many jobs that entailed such instantaneous consequence.

  The counter hit zero, and he ignited thrust with a simultaneous double-click of both thumbs. Phoenix barely rumbled, an anti-climactic shudder, then a gentle force that pressed them all back.

  “Grapple release,” Sasalaka said calmly. “All good.”

  Forward visual displayed on the periphery of Erik’s wrap-around vision, and now showed the rim of their berth, the hole that Phoenix had been sitting in for the past five months, slowly moving by. The pace accelerated, and he held thrust at barely a single G, all that was necessary to get them clear.

  “Engines all green,” Sasalaka confirmed what he could already see in another corner of the display. “Power is good, temperatures good. Berth control says thrust ducting good, no damage to berth.”

  “Lieutenant Rooke,” said Erik, watching all indicators simultaneously but wanting to hear it from the man himself. “How are we looking?”

  “Well there is one small anomaly, Captain,” came Rooke’s voice. He sounded excited. “Thrust chamber temperatures are below prediction, and ignition pressures are putting less stress on the superconductors than I thought. I think you’re in danger of boring her to death.”

  Erik repressed the grin that broke momentarily through his focus, then flipped channels. “Hello Lieutenant Hausler, how’s it look to you?”

  “It looks fucking beautiful, Captain,” came Hausler’s reply from PH-1, watching from nearby. Past the drawling pilot-cool, he sounded emotional. “She looks stunning, big white thrust plume fading to blue, barely half the luminosity she had before.” A few words were exchanged off-mike, then, “Corey says you should hear what the guys in the back think.”

  The channel flipped, and then Erik’s ears were filled with the excited swearing and whooping of the marines in PH-1’s hold, watching on their screens and visor displays. Erik’s grin escaped his control. “Thank you PH-1, standby while we gauge this guy’s response, then we’ll see about arranging a rendezvous trajectory for you.”

  Scan was showing him several House Fortitude warships passing near orbit, with hypothetical shots at their rising trajectory. “I’m not seeing any hostile response, Captain,” said Geish. “The magnification on Scan is fucking amazing, I can see if their turrets so much as twitch in our direction.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like this position though,” said Erik, watching those converging crossfire lines as the trajectories extended. “The longer we sit in their sights, the more chance they get bad ideas. We are approaching minimum safe range from the ground, prepare for a hard burn. Lieutenant Rooke, confirm jumpline status?”

  “Jumplines look good, Captain,” Rooke confirmed what Erik’s own displays showed. “I’d recommend just a tap for starters, then we work our way up from there.”

  “Just a tap, I hear you Lieutenant. All hands standby, hard manoeuvre imminent.” It wasn’t supposed to be possible this close to Defiance. The moon did not create an enormous gravity-well, but the singularity about which it orbited smothered all jump-engine activity like a blanket. Gravitational forces compressed space to a greater density, making it impossible for jump engines to bend space, the same way that a person would find wood harder to bend with bare hands than paper. Even the deepynine warships that had just recently attacked Defiance had not been able to use jump engines this close to the singularity, and had been forced to decelerate with real-space thrusters all the way in, thus making them vulnerable to defensive fire. But the jump engine in Phoenix’s alien rear-half was not human, alo, or deepynine — it was drysine, and the drysines, Styx always insisted, had been the most advanced civilisation in the history of the Spiral, and possibly far, far beyond.

  Erik opened the thrust up slowly, watching the engine gauges, and not wanting to hit full thrust while they were still close to the surface lest the backwash burn anything exposed on the surface. Thrust passed five Gs and the indicators barely moved, as though Phoenix were bored, as Rooke had suggested. They passed safe-range, and Erik opened thrust right up to ten, possibly alarming the House Fortitude ships watching… and then got a final green light from the jumplines, and gave them a tap.

  Phoenix emerged flying, a mere ten thousand kilometres an hour faster, nothing compared to the full-strength jump pulses that could be achieved in deep space away from gravity-wells. But it was a feat of technology unseen in the Spiral for the past twenty five thousand years, and as Phoenix’s crew double-checked systems, the com traffic all about Defiance fell to an eery silence.

  “There’s no one talking, sir,” said Shilu. “Just dead silence. Everyone’s watching.”

  “Lieutenant Shilu, get me contact with Lorna.”

  “Yes Captain. Contact established, go ahead.”

  “Hello Sordashan-sa, this is Captain Debogande of the human warship Phoenix. We retain physical possession of the drysine data-core, but you will find that its entire contents have been copied onto storage formats on Defiance. Gesul has sworn to share this technology with House Fortitude and all parren, and is sworn to your service in combating the deepynine threat. Talk to him in a spirit of peace and brotherhood, and all parren will benefit.” He ended the link.

  “Gonna be hell to pay when someone realises we lied about the data-core,” said Kaspowitz.

  “Gesul’s problem,” said Erik, and thankful for it. It had been astonishingly hard to part with the drysine data-core. For several insane, deadly months it had been his sole focus, Phoenix’s only hope of saving the human race from the peril of super-advanced technologies. The list of names of ship crew who’d died to win it was horrifyingly long. When the decision had been made to risk the core on Lien Wang for the long journey home, he’d nearly cried.

  But there hadn’t been a choice. Phoenix had been given a new mission just as important, and if she were lost while carrying the data-core, the outcome for humanity would be worse than if the core had never been found at all. Gesul’s scientists had completed their full copy, the storage files of which were thought to occupy several rooms, and word was they were now making progress on the all-important indexing system. Erik suspected that part of the reason Gesul was interested in incorporating sentient drysine AIs into the Harmony command structure was just so that he could efficiently sort and analyse all the data.

  It would turn House Harmony and the parren into a significantly larger power than they had been. That impacted everyone in the Spiral. To be sure, it could start horrible wars. Humanity had to get that data soon, because however reasonable Gesul seemed now, there was no guarantee he would still be alive in a few weeks, let alone the few decades that stability required. And it seemed to Erik entirely possible that Lien Wang’s mission was likely now more important than that of Phoenix.

  “I’m not sure ‘brotherhood’ will translate,” said Shilu. “Parren don’t do family like humans do.”

  “Whatever,” said Erik, scanning the new trajectories Kaspowitz’s projections were showing him. “Let the damn parren worry about translations for a change. Lieutenant Kaspowitz, I think the smartest thing to do is continue this full loop around the singularity and pick up our shuttles on the return leg. I want to do a few more performance checks before we leave the system.”

  “Aye Captain, we can do
that. You’ll have my best course in thirty seconds.”

  “Captain, should we show all of our performance in front of the parren?” Sasalaka asked. “Maybe better to keep some secrets?”

  “No,” said Erik, quite deliberately. “We’re only going to show them a tiny bit of what we can do. But I think it will be much safer for everyone if they see this with their own eyes.”

  12

  Two rotations later and shortly after her morning exercises Lisbeth sat at her workdesk in the habitat and flipped through her ever-growing stack of incoming assignments. Parren bureaucracy accumulated like bureaucracy anywhere in the Spiral, though was thankfully not as bad as tavalai bureaucracy. She sat in the low chair one of her staff had thoughtfully fabricated for her — parren weren’t much on chairs, but Lisbeth’s legs, back and circulation were relieved to have this one.

  Her office was decorated in the Shudaran style — Gesul’s preferred meditative practice. Domesh, but not the spartan minimalism of the Koripar. There were minor decorations — a tapestry hung on the trestle of a climbing vine that ascended one wall. About its base, a few decorative stones — ‘shoda’, Harmony parren called them, meaning something like ‘positive space’, as opposed to the negative space created by the gaps between the shodas in a garden, or a floor decoration. Wall displays showed various parren cities and old monuments that Lisbeth had never seen in person, though one remained fixed on a view of Shiwon on Homeworld, seen from the hills not far from the Debogande family home. The decoration made an ambience, important to Harmony parren as conducive to a calm demeanour and productive mood.

  After Phoenix had launched, she’d done a fast loop around the singularity, then decelerated with several equally impossible V-dumps to pick up each of her now-five shuttles in succession. No ship from the Fortitude fleet had made any gesture or sound of disapproval, perhaps realising that the humans hadn’t been exaggerating when they’d said it could be fatal. Then Phoenix had joined with Makimakala, boosted V at a more sedate pace that the tavalai could keep up with, and jumped, heading for Lusakia System.

  Which had left Lisbeth here, on this most alien of worlds, surrounded by aliens and a long, long way away from anything she’d once considered familiar. Panic had threatened… but she’d told herself firmly to stop being stupid, and focused on her work. Being busy had helped her on Phoenix when she’d first arrived there, and the claustrophobia combined with disorientation at the unreliable gravity had threatened to unhinge her completely. But head-down in Engineering, buried in some tedious data-analysis, she’d learned that the panic-sensitive portions of her brain could be safely ignored. Like a grandstanding child without an audience, the fear had slunk away, disappointed that no one was paying attention.

  A coms light flashed on her screen, and she blinked on it. Audio played in her ear — it was Orun, of course, her Chief of Communications. “Hello Lisbeth, the Chief Science Officer for House Acquisitive on Defiance has a query regarding something Captain Debogande said in a briefing five rotations ago…”

  “Oh right, which one was that?” Lisbeth flicked to the relevant date. “Yes, the briefing to the science officers… what was their query precisely?”

  “House Acquisitive wishes to have your translation on several points, the translator is functional but the context is lacking.”

  “Tell them to send it through.” On her side screen, the welcome to Sordashan was playing. Various cameras relayed vision, Lisbeth had no idea who was sorting which, but some idiot in House Fortitude had decided that House Harmony’s interior facilities were inadequate to receive the supreme leader of all parren, and so they were doing it outside. In the vacuum. Lisbeth did not know what the largest assembled EVA in Spiral history was — doubtless some of the larger wars had gathered an impressive number of armoured marines together in airless environments, but she doubted there would be many larger than the fifty thousand assembling across a high, flat stretch of massed landing pads by the Zho Ren District industrial zone. It overlooked the steel canyons of the Tower District, a vast expanse of rank upon rank of pressure-suited parren. Word was that it had taken four hours to assemble everyone, given the time it took to get through airlocks not equipped for a fraction this many. There were even flags and symbols on poles… utterly pointless without a breeze to fly on, and god forbid one of those things put a hole in someone’s suit. Lisbeth had no doubt that parren would rather depressurise and expire in silence rather than break ranks and run for an airlock.

  Sordashan’s command shuttle was landing now, all running lights ablaze, Fortitude marines leaping from the rear even as it touched. Surrounded by House Harmony, a display of trust brought about by overwhelming power and Gesul’s declaration of fealty in the face of alien threat. All parren had heard about the biotech analysis from Mylor Station, and the mortal threat it posed to all of the alo/deepynine’s potential enemies… yet still they poured their energies into these grand displays of rank and competitive power. Sometimes Lisbeth found parren culture intoxicatingly wonderful… and at other times she thought they all needed a good slapping. Gesul and his senior officials were all required to stand for hours out in that, but Lisbeth was thankfully not senior enough to qualify.

  Sordashan and his advisors had apparently decided not to declare any sort of war against Gesul’s House Harmony — mostly, Lisbeth’s advisors assured her, because Gesul had acquired too much momentum in the flux for Sordashan to risk it without triggering a massive phase-swing away from Fortitude toward Harmony. Further, Phoenix had just increased her status even further by defying Sordashan’s commands in full view of everyone, then skipping away to jump with previously-unseen technology, and declaring war on Phoenix’s allies would be seen as even worse form. Further still, Phoenix had demonstrated the technology to be gained for all parren, and Sordashan was going to find that difficult to turn his back on, no matter how some parren probably wished he would.

  Lisbeth added the House Acquisitive query to her stack, then returned to reading the report from the House Harmony fleet commanders on the Battle for Defiance. It was very dense going, and often she called up the translator to deal with difficult passages or technical terminology. There was a lot of information about House Harmony fleet deployments, procedures and tactics that would have intrigued human Fleet. Lisbeth recalled her meeting with Hiro’s ‘friend’ Daica, and the threats Fleet command had made against her family. Just give them something, he’d said. It will help make the case for your family. But if she got caught doing it…

  Her tabletop screens suddenly overlaid with swimming colours, like an aurora that flowed above her work. She dialled down the screen’s intensity, her reading dimmed as the flowing colours resolved into images — parren faces, parren talking, parren officials in stuffy robes shuffling along old temple corridors.

  “Hello Hanna,” said Lisbeth. It happened sometimes, when Hannachiam wanted to talk. Usually she only did it for good reason, but not always. “How are you today?”

  The images changed to starships, and one starship in particular — Phoenix, in deep space and illuminated only by the approach lights of some nearby shuttle. Even had she not served on her personally, Lisbeth could have identified those lines amongst any number of other ships. Images of Phoenix blasting from Defiance’s surface, two days ago.

  “Yes Hanna,” said Lisbeth with a faint smile. “I’m feeling a little sad that Phoenix has gone. But I have many friends here too. Are you watching the Sordashan ceremony?”

  The images changed, and suddenly there were camera angles from within the great formations of suited parren, showing rank after symmetrical rank, and a glare of bright and shadow from the external floodlights. She must have been accessing helmet cameras, Lisbeth thought. The parren might not like that, but good luck explaining to Hanna why she shouldn’t do it. More images then, planetside, of a spectacular gorge between three steep cliff-sides. A sheer valley, filled at its base by an enormous city, teeming about a big river that zagged through the gr
and old buildings and temples. A great waterfall fell from one cliff, tumbling over what looked like a kilometre’s drop, its white plume sending sheets of spray across the valley, and a bright rainbow above the many rooftops.

  Into the huge intersection of two valleys, an enormous temple had been carved into the base of a cliff, stepping up several great rises above the city. Upon those rising steps stood massed ranks of parren in rows… Lisbeth had seen great formations at the Kunadeen of House Harmony, but this looked at least twice the scale. And at the head of the formation grounds, looming above the rest, a high ceremony took place, colourful officials and presiding officials, as someone important was sworn in for something big. Lisbeth didn’t know what, or if the images were real or something from Hanna’s gargantuan imagination. But she recognised the place from pictures.

  “That’s Shonedene, the Fortitude home city. Where Sordashan rules from.” Lisbeth frowned, wondering why Hanna was showing her this.

  Something sounded on Lisbeth’s audio — a rhythmic tapping. The images switched to writhing darkness — a hacksaw nest, a thicket of tunnels and activity, drysine drones scuttling past like bees in a hive. A camera pan, then a closeup of a big drone, tapping on something nearby. Those taps, and the tapping in Lisbeth’s audio, were synchronised.

  Lisbeth’s eyes widened. “Hanna, does one of the drones wish to speak with me?”

  The tapping stopped, and Lisbeth’s screens turned blank. A crackling, like some ancient audio recording from the days of magnetic tape… or the static interference of a star’s radiation. Then, “Hello Lisbeth.”

  The voice was female, high, clear and young. It spoke English. Lisbeth felt her breath catch. “Hello? Who is this?”

  “I have decided that my name shall be Liala.” Even Lisbeth heard of Liala. Liala was the child of fortune in one of the greatest parren plays ever written, a work simply entitled Summer, by the playwright Conelis. Not the largest speaking part even in that play, but Liala had come to take on a significance in parren culture perhaps exceeding that with which humans recalled Hamlet or Othello.