Hecate

by J. B. Rockwell

  “Adjust your course two degrees starboard,” Scythe instructed. “Follow this route.” She highlighted several asteroids on the schematic, laid in a zig-zagging line.

  “Not exactly a direct route,” Henricksen noted, sparing a look for the camera.

  “Changes the vector of approach on the center,” she admitted, “but it’ll get you there. Just don’t, you know, run into anything along the way. Especially anything mine-shaped.”

  “Gee. Thanks, coach.” Henricksen adjusted his course, comparing the information on the schematic to the realities of the rocks outside. Adjusted it again, not liking what he saw, swinging even further out.

  Cleared a huge rock and saw an alert appear, flashing bright red on his panel.

  “Great. What now?”

  A touch at the panel in front of him opened the alert. He scanned the information, making it just halfway through the data before a second alert appeared, overlaying the first. A third and fourth, a dozen soon after, cascading in a steady flow.

  Mine positions associated with each of them, dozens of those ominous red dots popping into existing, cluttering up the already busy schematic showing on the bridge pod’s windows. Pattern to them that slowly came clear. A clustering effect, focused on that blank space at the center—the outer five kilometers of the asteroid field showing clear, more and more mines appearing the further they moved in.

  Henricksen slid the ship around a spiked shape, giving it wide berth. Ugly thing, ominous and sinister. Dull grey metal, spherical in shape. Round nubs sticking up everywhere. Like caltrops, but blunted. Sticking out of from a huge ball.

  Fixed position, not tumbling like the asteroids around it. Precisely placed, or so it seemed, to fill the spaces between the endlessly spinning rocks.

  Grey-sided to hide amongst them, signatures flickering as Scythe slid through the stone sea. The route she’d plotted adjusting and readjusting as more and more mines appeared, cluttering the way ahead.

  Henricksen consulted the schematic, eyes flicking rapid-fire between that map and the reality of space outside. Cursed and feathered the maneuvering jets, detouring again, slewing the ship sideways to skip around a mine, bringing her back on course again on the other side. “Fucking Kinsey. Fucking spook and her piss-poor map.”

  “Look at them all,” Ogawa breathed, watching a mine slide by. “They’re everywhere.”

  Dozens of them, from what the scans picked up. Hundreds of them based on Scythe’s projections. Scattered across the length and breadth of the asteroid field, hiding in the shadows of its tumbling rocks.

  Not a safe place to be. Rocks were bad enough—trained for those, even if the map was shit—but the mines…

  Skim a rock and you’d dent the ship—piss off the mechs, but likely make it home. Skim a mine and it was over. Flash, bang, dead.

  Ogawa fidgeted, throwing glances Henricksen’s way. “You—you do know what you’re doing, right, sir?”

  “Little late if I don’t,” Henricksen told her, easing around a rock. “Way back’s as ugly as the way ahead at this point. ’Sides,” he said, nodding to the schematic on the windows, the promise of open space at the center. “We’re just about there.”

  Less than a kilometer of rocks and mines to thread around now, mines threw them a curveball—huge swathes of them showing on the front windows, ominous and red, painting the schematic in blood—but they just about had it. Just about made it through.

  Henricksen twitched his shoulders, trying to ease his harness’s grip. Flexed aching fingers clenched in a death grip around the ship’s control stick. Concentrated on his flying—that most of all. “Ogawa. Need you on Comms.”

  “But—”

  “Not much use for an Engineer in here,” he told her. “But I need someone monitoring channels once we clear these rocks.” He risked a glance in her direction—a fleeting look only, eyes snapping back to the windows in a hurry. “You keep one ear on that station once we find it, the other on the stars.”

  Ogawa was quiet a moment, watching the windows, the rocks tumbling by outside. “Aye, sir,” she said softly, shoving the Engineering data to one panel, tapping into the Comms system from the other.

  “Scythe?” Henricksen spared another look for the camera. “Help her out?”

  “I’ve got a few pingers left. I can deploy them once we reach the center if you’d like.”

  “Much obliged.” Henricksen dipped his head, focusing on the windows, spotted an opening just off the port bow, and adjusted their course.

  A last diversion, swinging wide of an immense rock, and asteroids retreated as the world opened up.

  Henricksen breathed deep, tense muscles relaxing as the schematic adjusted, the deathscape of mines and asteroids retreating behind them, a small sea of empty space stretching ahead.

  More death on the far side, but Henricksen ignored that for now. Concentrated on the sensor data streaming across his panel, measuring the size of the space around them, the length and width and found it surprisingly symmetrical: ten kilometers from one side to the other, oval-shaped and vacant. Blessedly empty. Not a mine or asteroid in sight.

  Scan pinged, picking up new information, spewing out long lines of data. Henricksen searched the space ahead and spied a monstrosity lurking at the center—a massive structure, ugly and misshapen, surrounded by a loose ring of small ships.

  “Guessing that’s our science station,” Sikuuku said, pulling that image into his pod.

  “Must be,” Henricksen grunted, adjusting the ship’s course, skulking silently around the open space’s edge.

  “It look kinda odd to you?” Sikuuku asked him.

  Henricksen reached for the panel in front of him, accessed the feeds from the ship’s forward facing cameras and zoomed in, taking a good, long look.

  Odd didn’t begin to cover it. Early space stations followed a spoke-and-wheel pattern—cylinder shaped station at the center, walkways radiating outward in a starburst pattern, connecting to a ring-shaped dockyard with ship’s berthings arranged along its curving length. Military—being military—tended to go for the cube-on-cube configuration like Dragoon, expanding spaces as needed by adding on more cubes. But this thing…In all his years and all his travels across the galaxy, Henricksen had never come across any space station that looked like this.

  Orb-shaped, many orbs, actually, with connectors running between them, turning the entire construction into a gigantic dandelion. A molecular structure viewed under magnification, scaled up and built to that design.

  “Someone took the whole ‘science station’ thing a bit far,” Sikuuku grunted, cycling through the camera feeds himself. “Small for a station,” he noted. “Put ten of those inside Dragoon and still have room left over.”

  “Space is at a premium,” Henricksen pointed out, releasing the control stick long enough to wave a hand at the emptiness around them. “You’d be hard put to cram Dragoon inside this asteroid field. Not that Dragoon’s anything to write home about.”

  Proper space station, but old and moldy. Didn’t hold a candle to Harmony, or Harbourside, or one of the other, fancier facilities scattered across Meridian Alliance space.

  “Take Dragoon over that fragile looking thing any day.” Sikuuku blanked the feeds, pulling the targeting system back onto his panel. “Dragoon may stink, but I’d trust that durable old tub over this DSR piece of crap any day.”

  Personally, Henricksen didn’t want either. A few weeks on Dragoon and he was already sick of stations. Missed Hecate more than ever. The feel of her as they traveled the stars.

  “So what’s the plan?” Sikuuku asked, dragging Henricksen’s mind back to the present.

  “Divide and conquer, same as before. Hanu.” Henricksen glanced at Scan, nodded to the shape showing through the windows. “I need scans of that structure. Information on the ships around it.”

  “On it,” she said, fingers flying across her panel.

  “Scythe. You drop those pingers?”

  “Listen
ing devices away,” she said brightly. “Ogawa and I pick up any good recipes, we’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Always lookin’ for a good casserole.” He flashed a smile at the camera, forgetting the helmet hiding his face. Flipped a thumbs up when he remembered, opening ship-to-ship comms. “Shriek,” he called, searching for the ghostly shapes of the RV-Ns on Scan. “You and Snicker-snack stick together. Might not be quite as efficient,” he acknowledged when Shriek started to object, “but he’s damn near half-blind.”

  “Am not,” Snicker-snack grumped. “I can see just fine on my left side.”

  “Uh-huh.” Henricksen glanced at Scythe’s camera, shaking his head. “Just stick close to Shriek, ya hear me? I want you two searching that section of the asteroid field behind us while Sharp and Sever take a look around the far side. You find that can, you tell me. Soon as you pick it up.”

  “Roger-roger!” Shriek’s comms clicked closed, ghostly shape turning as he and Snicker-snack moved off. “By the way,” he said, channel crackling, voice coming through. “How will we know if we find this thing-a-ma-jigger canister if we come across it?”

  Henricksen sighed. Like he was supposed to know. “Well, it’s small, so there’s that—”

  “How small?”

  “I don’t know, Shriek.” He gritted his teeth, trying for calm. “But Kinsey’s spook supposedly tossed it out with the trash, so I’m guessing it’s really small. As in, smaller than your pilot small.”

  Shriek whistled appreciatively—piercing tone, and decidedly odd. An AI’s version of a whistle, approximating that distinctly human sound. “That’s pretty darn small.”

  “’Spose.”

  Janssen was actually rather large, as far as human went—tall anyway, if a bit thin—but Henricksen decided to let it go. Watched Shriek move away with Petros at the controls, Janssen and Snicker-snack following a discrete distance behind. “Janssen,” he called, opening a channel to the trailing ship’s bridge. “Keep Shriek off Comms.”

  “Got it. I’ll keep him quiet.”

  “Good luck.” Ogawa snorted. “Chattiest damn AI I ever met in my life.”

  Henricksen smiled, detailing Sever and Sharp to the opposite side of the asteroid field for survey and retrieval while Scythe held the middle. Focused on the science station nearby.

  A touch at the controls moved the stealth ship away from the asteroid field’s edge, put her on approach to the DSR installation, its ring of surrounding ships. He guided her close—close as he dared, tensed up tight, expecting perimeters alarms to start shrieking, warning of station sensors creeping across their skin. Feathered the maneuvering jets to turn her and keep turning, settling Scythe into a wide, looping pattern, turning round and round the science station and its cluster of ships.

  One loop and another, and the station stayed silent—Scythe’s stealth system holding, cloak doing its job. Third loop around the station and Henricksen finally relaxed a bit. Released his death grip on the ship’s controls—looping pattern required little intervention from the pilot, momentum doing most of the work—and sat back, studying the data on the station Scan’s sensors picked up.

  Uglier close in than it looked from a distance. A single structure, but one constructed from many and disparate parts. Pieces chopped, and fitted, and bolted together. Everything rounded and orb-shaped—a half a dozen spheres on the outside, connected by supporting structures and bridging mechanisms to an oversized globe at the center.

  “Ogawa. What’s the chatter?” Henricksen kept his voice low, hushed tones whispering across the bridge pod’s internal channel.

  “Nothing unusual.” She turned her head, looking to Scythe for confirmation.

  “Stealth shield appears to be holding,” she confirmed. “They don’t even know we’re here.”

  “Yeah, well, don’t get cocky.” Henricksen spared a look for the camera, fingers feather-light on the control stick—guiding the ship, but not really flying it now. Smooth, steady course—that’s what he wanted. Stay off the maneuvering jets. Attract as little attention as possible.

  Kept one eye on the sensor data while the ship turned in circles. Tracked the progress of station scans, ran a pass across the ring of ships arranged around it while he was at it, searching for energy signatures and weapons ports—anything that might spell trouble.

  Good, bad, or indifferent, the scans came up pretty much empty. Dead ships out there, apparently. At least, as far as the sensors could tell. Didn’t make Henricksen feel any better, though. This entire mission felt hinky. All this sneaking around made him twitchy. Nervous as all get-out.

  He twitched his shoulders, trying to ease cramped muscles, grimacing as a trickle of sweat worked its way down his back. Sucked in a breath and blew it back, slowing his heart with an effort, concentrating on the simple things. Actionable things. Like keeping the ship steady. Her course flat and smooth.

  A whir of machinery and the Artillery pod pivoted, giving Sikuuku a better view of the windows. “Ugly ass pile of junk out there, isn’t it?”

  “Shoestring budget. That’s what you get.”

  “DSR does love their cobbled-together shit.” Sikuuku chuckled and went quiet, staring through the windows as the ship continued its looping course. “You really think that thing’s a science station like Kinsey claims? Full of boffins and such?”

  “Maybe.”

  Sikuuku grunted, going quiet again. “That thing in the middle.” He leaned out, pointing a finger at the windows. “That look familiar to you?”

  Henricksen squinted, peering between the outer orbs to the larger sphere at the center.

  It did indeed look familiar. In fact, it bore a rather uncanny resemblance to the ship that killed Hecate.

  “Cepheid?” Henricksen glanced around and saw Sikuuku’s helmeted head nod.

  “That’s what I’m thinking. Rest of them, all those smaller spheres connected to the big one at the center…” Sikuuku grabbed the back of Henricksen’s seat, bracing himself as he leaned even further out. “Hard to tell for certain, but if I had to guess, I’d say those are ships as well. Or parts of ships, anyway.”

  “The remains of ships,” Scythe said softly. “Carved up and fitted together. The best parts of their bodies taken. AIs cast out, leaving nothing but their ghosts behind.”

  “Well, that’s certainly creepy,” Sikuuku muttered, stuffing himself back into his pod.

  “Say that again.” Henricksen shivered, thinking of Hecate again. That copy of her consciousness stored in some Meridian Alliance vault somewhere.

  Suddenly wanted out of here. Quite badly, in fact.

  “Hanu. What’s the status of that station scan?”

  Hanu shook her head without looking, eyes focused on the reams of data flowing across her panel. “Getting there, sir, but there’s a lot of data to parse through.”

  “How long?”

  Hanu hesitated, shrugging. “Few more minutes. Five at most and I should be able to tell you what that thing out there’s about.”

  Five minutes—an eternity of time.

  “And the ships around it?”

  Hanu pulled her eyes away from the sensor data long enough to send Henricksen a file.

  He nodded his thanks, pulling it up on the Pilot station’s panel, sharing the information with Sikuuku inside his pod.

  “Transports. Figures,” Sikuuku grunted.

  “Small ones,” Henricksen noted. “For transports anyway. Probably ship to station haulers, not long-haul transports.”

  “Transports don’t carry weapons typically. Assume that’s how the DSR ended up with ’em.”

  “Assume they’re dangerous,” Henricksen told him. “Or at least very, very unfriendly.”

  “Got it.” Sikuuku reset his pod, flipping switches, settling the targeting visor over his eyes. “First sign of trouble, I’ll blast ’em.”

  “Just hold on for now, okay? No itchy trigger fingers.” Henricksen twisted, looking back over his shoulder. “We’re stealth ship
s, remember? Shielded. We start firing and this whole thing’ll turn into a helluva mess.”

  “Fine,” Sikuuku muttered, heaving a heavy sigh. “But you say the word and they go boom, boss.”

  “Boom it is,” Henricksen nodded, facing back around. “Ogawa. Check the status of the other Ravens. Let me know if they’ve found anything yet.”

  “Aye, sir.” Ogawa tapped out a text only message, staring at her panel until the answers came back. “Negatory, sir. Nothing yet.”

  “Damn.”

  He’d hoped they’d find that canister quickly. Grab the scans of this station and beat feet back to Dragoon in a hurry.

  “How do you suppose they got it in here?” Ogawa asked, listening with half an ear to Comms. “The station-ship-thingy,” she elaborated, twiddling her fingers at the shape outside.

  “Jumped it,” Henricksen guessed.

  “Jump a station?” Ogawa sounded suspicious. Like she thought he was pulling her leg. “How would they do that?”

  “Built it out of salvaged ships, from the looks of things. Makes sense they left the jump drives in ’em.” He paused, considering Sikuuku behind him. “Kinsey told me they found that station before, you know. Found it and lost it, which makes me wonder...” He chewed his lip, thinking a moment, glanced at Ogawa and just shrugged. “Can’t really explain how you lose a station, unless it’s got some kind of hyperspace capability, know what I mean?”

  Ogawa nodded slowly, helmeted face staring out the windows. Turned back to her station and immersed herself in Comms again.

  “Pretty fucking insane taking a wreck like that into hyperspace.” Sikuuku flicked a few more switches, adjusted the fit of his targeting visor. “Shooting for a set of coordinates and just hoping to hit a clear spot.”

  “Maybe,” Henricksen admitted, shrugging again.

  “Or maybe not.” Hanu looked at him, and at the windows, toggling the display on the glass to layer the scan data over the asteroid field map. Highlighted the close-packed ships—dangerously close, to Henricksen’s mind, pilot’s instincts calculating ranges, accounting for drift—pointing to an anomalous energy signature half-hidden in their middle. “Looks like they’ve got a repeater. Dicey maneuver, but you can severely pare down the jump displacement if you can hone in on the frequency of that thing.”