Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “You mean… part of the old city from the Machine Age is still down there?”

  “Buried and preserved,” Gesul agreed.

  “Why?”

  “I do not know,” said Gesul. “These motivations are as long dead as the individuals who did the deed. But I think Styx may know.”

  “Did you ask her?” Lisbeth asked suspiciously. “Before you left?” Timoshene glared at her. Such blunt questions to a parren of Gesul’s rank were unheard of.

  “I may have,” Gesul said mildly. And said no more. She was not to ask, then… but with Gesul, she would at least keep her head. Timoshene thought she abused his tolerance of her human strangeness.

  “Who will I be going with?”

  “Timoshene and a small team of his will provide primary security. Hiro Uno as well. Liala and one of her drones. The other drone must remain and be visible, least anyone realise Liala is missing. Most cannot tell the difference between her and the others.”

  Which was likely intentional, Lisbeth thought with deepening suspicion. “Why me?” she asked. “I am hardly a combatant, nor an intrepid explorer, Gesul-sa. Surely you can find more qualified…”

  “I find harmony in this combination,” Gesul interrupted. “You will comply, or your time in my service will be ended.” He turned, and swept out. Lisbeth inclined her head, fighting astonishment on several fronts. Not the least of which being that it was the first time she’d heard Gesul state a possibility she’d often wondered at — her leaving his service, alive and in one piece. Apparently such a thing was possible, at least in his mind. Most parren of her rank of service served until they met disfavour, fluxed to a new phase, were shuffled sideways to make way for younger blood, retired of old age, or died in some assassination or coup. Which was not to say that those things were now impossible, of course…

  She looked at Timoshene, adrenaline up from that encounter with authority, and just a little angry at being bossed into situations in which she didn’t truly belong. “So,” she said, defiantly to his disapproval. “When do we go?” Timoshene gestured toward the door. Lisbeth blinked. “Now?”

  Trace spotted Tiga coming up Midships central, hand-over-handing in that awkward way newbies did in zero-G. Phoenix Midships was all different now — still the central space between the berth access voids that fanned out to the hull, but there were three void layers now, then the huge engineering spaces behind where Midships attached to the engines. Midships was thirty percent longer than it had been, mostly to accommodate that beast of an engine rig. Theoretically it meant Phoenix could dock much larger shuttles now, or even insystem runners, the docking grapples accessible without the engine mountings getting in the way. It also meant Phoenix Company had more space for exercises in the Third Void before engineering began, and Trace was taking every opportunity to fill it.

  Alpha Platoon occupied it currently, spread into squads and sections across Third Void’s span, in full armour and tracking holographic targets with the new systems Engineering had been helping them to integrate into tacnet. Marines held positions along the storage-locker walls, anchor-pointing with magnetic locks while Koshaims tracked targets, then firing with deafening thuds of simulated gunfire. They talked, squads identifying positions, manoeuvring with supporting fire, always angling for the first kill-shot. The new armscomp tech was derived from Styx’s tech — by interlocking each shot and each result, the system learned, studied enemy responses and calculated corrections not merely for the marine who’d fired, but for any other marine about to fire on the same targets. After an extended period of practice, they were discovering that the system could lay down variable fire patterns for a group of marines designed to increase the collective probability of effective fire, as opposed to just letting each marine take his best shot and hope.

  Leading Tiga was Skah, specially moulded plugs in his ears, AR glasses on and looking every bit the miniature kuhsi spacer in his jumpsuit and full pockets. He cautioned Tiga to wait at the void edge, grasping a locker handhold and peering ahead for some marine to give him an all clear. Trace might have smiled and felt proud if she hadn’t been absorbed in watching her people shoot invisible targets. Tiga flinched every time a shot sounded — the rifles were only set for single-fire, the best way to test accuracy, and the blank rounds were only half the volume of the real thing, but they were plenty loud for a civilian accustomed to old-fashioned shotguns. Tiga’s mane fanned about her face like a halo, big eyes wide behind her glasses as she stared about. Tavalai spacers were pulling needed gear from a nearby locker, and she stared at them too.

  Finally Trace informed Lieutenant Dale and Sergeant Forrest in the near void that Skah was crossing behind with Tiga, and beckoned to them both. It was a ten meter gap, and Skah used a small handjet to send him moving with a burst of compressed air. That was new, but he made it look easy, with his usual dexterity and effortless grasp of how things moved in zero-G. Tiga followed with a jump, harder for her with short legs, but Alpha had all stopped moving and shooting to wait for the civvies to pass, whatever the tiny chance of a collision. That was Skah — marines always made the extra effort to keep him safe, in light of his persistent attempts to get himself hurt.

  Skah caught a handle opposite Trace’s suit, knowing better than to grab her, having done that before with marines and been scolded for grabbing an unsecured anchor-point. Tiga followed, dexterous enough for all her newness. Trace raised her visor, and the graphical overlay disappeared, cold air hitting her face.

  “Najor,” said Skah. “Reirur say she know thing about target. I ask Spacer Hong, and Spacer Razy say cone ask Rewtenant Jararwi, and Jararwi say he ask you, and you say…”

  “About the target?” Trace asked Tiga. Some other time she’d have complimented Skah on his following correct procedure, as Tiga’s escort on this trip, to contact a ranking officer if something came up. But Skah knew that interrupting crew on crew business was a serious matter, especially when those crew were marines on combat drill in full armour. Today his reward would be that she wouldn’t treat him like a kid, because so far he hadn’t acted like one. “What target?”

  “Our destination,” said Tiga, via translator. “Ko’ja System. There is something there, I wasn’t allowed to tell you earlier. But we’re three jumps into reeh space and I can speak freely now.”

  Trace considered her for a long moment. It wasn’t particularly surprising. The corbi resistance were secretive, and Dega’s group were keeping secrets to protect the lives of millions. But neither was she going to show Tiga any pleasure at having things kept from her. Gunshots boomed as the training resumed.

  “Come on,” she said. “Easier to talk in Engineering. You too, Skah.”

  She pulled herself that way, always marines used handholds rather than thrust with unarmoured people around. Skah’s astonishment at not being dismissed when adult matters were at hand was entertaining, but she wasn’t going to show him so. She flew down the central void wall, and ahead the walls grew thickets of power cables over shielded compartments, electrical and plasma systems so powerful they needed containment in standard operation to keep passing crew safe.

  Engineering Void One opened above and around like enormous flower petals spreading to the ship’s outer hull, a tangled mass of small alcoves amid humming, throbbing regulators, power and sensor systems. Trace pulled herself around the corner and saw multiple Engineering crew further down in full protective suits, working on some dangerous-looking installation, sub-components floating about them like the shiny synthetic internal organs of some alien creature. Trace thought Phoenix felt quite a lot like that down this end of Midships now — like the guts of an enormous creature, writhing and humming in ways occasionally familiar but mostly disconcerting. Changing the powerplant had changed the ship, turned it into a completely different animal, but you could only truly see it when you came down here where the Engineering rats lived.

  A drysine drone flew by, clutching some new component in its synthetic limbs as it mano
euvred with the modular compressed-air thrusters they preferred for zero-G. Tiga stared.

  “You’ve seen one before?” Trace asked her. Mostly the drones lived down here — it was where most of the work was and they liked it better, without the tedious restrictions of layered floors and corridors crowded with staring humans and tavalai. Erik had considered making that restriction an order, but the drones’ preference meant he hadn’t needed to.

  “I saw one,” said Tiga. “In the corridors.”

  “She scared,” Skah chortled. “It was Peanut, I say Peanut not scary, Peanut said herro but Reirur didn’t say herro back. Peanut think Reirur rude.”

  “Peanut’s safe,” Trace agreed. “He helps the marines sometimes in Assembly. That was Bucket who just flew by, he’s okay too, but not as friendly. If you see Wowser, best leave him alone.”

  “How do you tell the difference?” Tiga asked, staring at where the drone had gone, hovering by the working group by the outer hull.

  “Their forward appendage configuration is different. But the easier way is just to keep your glasses on, they’ll identify which one you’re looking at. What did you have to tell me about our destination?”

  “We can one-jump it,” said Kaspowitz, looking at the holographic display above the small tabletop in Erik’s quarters a few hours later. “I’m not sure if Makimakala can, we’ll have to ask them. You’re sure it’s a good idea to go jumping all over reeh space on the say-so of a corbi girl who’s never even been off-world before?”

  “In light of the fact that we don’t have a choice,” said Erik, “I’ll take that as a comment.” He sat on the bunk, Sasalaka leaning by the door, each nearly as far apart as the quarters allowed, yet they could all touch hands if they reached. Erik ate a plate of stir fry, his last meal before bed. Erik and Kaspowitz were readjusting to twelve-hour shifts in a twenty-four hour day, having nearly forgotten how draining it was after five months of a more balanced schedule on Defiance.

  They were cruising across a small red dwarf system, two jumps from the croma border. Now they were headed parallel to the Croma Wall, on the reeh side, and hoping that no one was tracking them. It seemed unlikely — croma incursions regularly destroyed buoys and other system sensors, and those still hidden and functioning had to be visited by an incoming reeh ship to communicate. Data from such sensors was always late to be analysed by higher command, while scouting ships in transit were fast. This space was newly-won by reeh in combat, meaning sometime in the last five hundred years, and reeh were not large-scale colonisers, particularly not this close to an established and hostile foe. All of the larger reeh populations were several jumps further from the Croma Wall, and these close-range systems were a disputed no-man’s land. The irony that it was easier for Phoenix and Makimakala to reach their destination on the reeh side of the border than the croma was lost on no one.

  Dega had given them Beirun System for a rendezvous with the resistance. Now Tiga was changing that to Ko’ja System, not far off their course, but far enough. There was a resistance ship at Ko’ja, she said, lying stealthy in an elliptic orbit, rotated every sixty days with a new ship. Boring duty, no doubt, but the kind of thing an organised resistance might do so that those who needed to could get in contact with them.

  “It’s an odd orbit,” said Kaspowitz, stretching long legs from the table. He poked a finger into the display and the highlighted element expanded, showing numbers and moving lines. “But it’s hard to detect on most entry angles from nearby systems, and it’s a pretty good watch point, there’s few blindspots with that sun on the elliptic. Going to take a fair burn after we arrive to reach it, a few dumps and boosts… call it fifteen hours if it’s in the general vicinity to where Tiga says.”

  “If you were reeh and setting a trap for anyone coming to meet them,” said Erik around a mouthful, “where would you be hiding?”

  Kaspowitz shook his head. “That elliptic’s too far out to be reached by low-performance ships, so they’ll know anything rendezvousing there will be high-performance. Hard to ambush high-performance ships in deep space, the proximity horizon’s too exposed. Their best bet would be to have a silent watcher, watching the corbi ship and reporting movements after we’ve left.”

  ‘Proximity Horizon’ referred to the ideal ambush spot in space warfare, a concept well-understood by all Fleet officers. Too far away and the ambushees would have plenty of warning, too close and the ambush would be spotted before it even began. Proximity to gravity-wells had a way of forcing ships into closer contact, limiting the effect of boost and thrust, making it harder for escaping ships to get away. If Tiga’s coordinates were correct, this Resistance scout had chosen its position well.

  “I’d like your best guesses before we arrive,” said Erik. “I don’t want to assume anything against the reeh.”

  Kaspowitz nodded. “I’ve got half the report done already, I’ll finish it tonight. But I think our biggest danger is treachery from our guest.”

  “Predictably anti-social of you,” said Erik, sipping a drink. “But I agree. Sasa?”

  “Seems nice to me,” said the tavalai, noncommittal as usual. “Scared, but pretends not to be. But your intelligence man, Jokono, said the croma had files on her and her parents and friends. Said she seems fine.”

  “If you trust the croma files he got the background from,” said Kaspowitz.

  Sasalaka nodded slowly. “Yes, trusting croma is maybe not smart. But Jokono was using vocal stress tests, Styx is good at that, yes? He thinks she’s telling the truth.”

  “If you trust Styx,” Kaspowitz said pointedly.

  “In Togiri we say that this argument makes a circle,” said Sasalaka, holding up a thick-fingered hand to make an O between finger and thumb. The small webbing flattened it out. “Can you say in English, a circular argument?”

  “That’s exactly what we call it,” Erik told her.

  “Well then, circular arguments, Lieutenant Kaspowitz, arrive at pre-seen conclusions,” said Sasalaka. Erik liked the way she built up to her point methodically, like a bricklayer building a wall. So tavalai in her gruff-yet-lighter voice — never hurried, rarely deterred.

  “Circular courses are useful in space warfare to avoid getting blown up,” the Nav Officer replied. “Something a Navigation Officer might know that a pilot wouldn’t.” Sasalaka gave a gracious nod, conceding a point well-made without necessarily agreeing. Unlike some tavalai, she knew her place on this ship, and wasn’t prepared to follow an argument over a cliff.

  “I think Sasa’s basically correct,” Erik intervened. “Trying to guess at all the ways people might be trying to screw us is counter-productive at this time because we lack sufficient information to make that judgement. We’d be guessing, and guessing isn’t helpful. The best we can do is be prepared to change course and strategy one-eighty degrees when things go wrong.”

  17

  Tiga sat in the rear of the human shuttle, and stared at the display that hovered before her eyes. It was The Traveller, a real resistance ship, and she was on a course to board it. Further back in the shuttle’s wider, rear hold were a single squad of marines — twelve in the predictable prime numbers that humans used in so much of their organisation, strapped to seats in their enormous armour rigs, thirty percent larger than anything a corbi could have used. But after a life among croma, Tiga was used to far larger size differentials.

  Her inner ear swam disorientingly as the shuttle spun on its axis, put its tail in the direction of travel and engaged thrust with a jolt. Tiga had had G-augments done when she was fifteen, a statement to her parents, and to herself, that she would leave Do’Ran at the first opportunity. One could not serve in the Resistance without G-augments. The readout on the glasses that barely fit her face was only two-point-six Gs. Phoenix had pulled far more than that on the way here, in standard manoeuvres, and she was certain she could handle as much as those engines could put out.

  Phoenix and Makimakala had taken another three jumps to get here, ren
dezvousing with the Resistance vessel left in deep orbit about Ko’Ja System, as per Tiga’s instruction via Dega. Behind her now, The Traveller’s Captain was seated with several senior officers. The Captain’s name was Bella, and the command contingent sat with a single human escort — an officer whose name Tiga didn’t know. They’d all been on Phoenix, talking with Captains Debogande, Pramodenium and some other officers, discussing what came next. Tiga didn’t know what, she’d only been introduced at the beginning, then told she’d have a chance to talk with the Resistance crew at length later on. ‘Later on’ had now arrived, and Tiga had been told she’d be allowed to go to the Resistance ship when the command crew headed back. Whether she was to stay there from that point, or continue as Phoenix’s guide, was up to her and The Traveller, and whether the corbi could provide Phoenix with a more knowledgeable guide. Tiga didn’t think that would be hard.

  Thrust increased as they approached dock, Tiga accessing an external camera to see the Resistance ship’s skinny Midships getting larger alarmingly fast. Surely the pilot had misjudged? Thrust increased further, and Tiga made several deep gasps for air — nearly five Gs, and it did not feel pleasant at all. Warships could pull nearly ten. She reconsidered her earlier confidence.

  Thrust ceased half-a-second before a firm thud and crash of grapples, then all movement and gravity ceased. A combat approach, Tiga realised. Whether it was because Phoenix considered The Traveller a threat, or because Phoenix pilots always flew like this in hostile space, she didn’t know. That was the kuhsi pilot up front, Skah’s sometimes-alarming mother. Amazingly, Skah was up there with her in one of the observer seats. Someone on Phoenix had decided to let him take his duties as her escort very seriously, which then included allowing him to show her how to strap in to a shuttle seat, and where the emergency oxygen attachment was, and how the decompression doors would come down if something hit them. He’d been so cheerful about it, as about everything, all eagerness to ensure their guest thought well of them and enjoyed her time in space as much as he evidently did. Tiga realised she was going to miss him when she parted ways and joined the Resistance for good. Whether that was here or not… well, she’d have to wait and see what The Traveller’s Captain Bella said.