The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3)

by A. G. Claymore

  His leg and shoulder muscles twitched slightly, a faint vestige of an ancient fight-or-flight reflex. “Vizier, what was that series of impacts on our shield?”

  “It appears to have been small-arms fire from the Human ships.”

  NGark tilted his head, raising an eyelid in amusement. Those apes should have known they could never harm a warship. Even the nav-shielding would…

  He straightened slightly, his neck seeming to grow longer. The station didn’t travel. It needed no shielding in the pristine orbitals of Nurazhal. “Is any of that small arms fire heading for the station?”

  “Impossible to tell, sir. The rounds are too small for our sensors to resolve.”

  Those apes!

  ***

  Though the chances of impact had been slim, the crewmen on Ava’s ship weren’t the only ones with the idea of firing from a forward bay. Dozens of crew had fired thousands of rounds and - with almost all of them aimed at the station, the chances of impact had grown accordingly.

  The Grays had concentrated their defensive efforts on stopping rounds from the main and secondary batteries, and they’d succeeded, but the smaller rounds streaked past, mostly unnoticed. Almost all of them passed harmlessly by the massive ring to burn up in the atmosphere below.

  A single, three-round burst of 10mm depleted uranium penetrated the outer hull in a strategic storage zone, red streaks slicing through the air as they tumbled through the deck plating to disappear into the machinery beneath. They caused an inconvenient amount of damage but they’d narrowly missed the conveyor line of nuclear armatures destined to become self-destruct devices.

  They also missed the mildly startled Gray technician servicing one of the robotic arms that installed the firing circuits. Before the clone could look up at the hissing holes behind him, the holes combined.

  The metal parts of the station had survived centuries of flex as it dealt with the pull of Nurazhal’s two moons. Over the years, the cyclic gravitational forces had led to the nucleation of millions of microscopic fatigue cracks throughout the station. As the abuse continued – the moons were still there, after all – the cracks grew and united, gradually weakening the structure of the entire station.

  The impact of the three rounds had hit a particularly weak junction where the presence of stabilizing walls were few and far between. Only the final components, such as self-destructs, were stored and installed in this section and the structural frame-lattice had less support.

  The section of hull around the three holes was snatched away into the darkness and the sudden increase in escaping air grabbed the technician and slammed him against the fatally weakened panel, tearing the entire section of hull plate loose.

  The wall panels on the interior side of the chamber were not secured tightly enough to deal with such a sudden pressure differential and the air on the inboard side pushed it violently toward the growing hole in the hull. They struck the robotic arms on their way out and one arm, having just completed the insertion of a firing trigger, was grazed by a power conduit that trailed behind the panel.

  The conduit was still live and it grounded against the robot arm for just long enough to send a flow of electricity to the firing trigger.

  There were dozens of self-destruct devices on the conveyor line but only one of them detonated. It was more than enough to cause severe damage.

  Originally developed to prevent advanced Gray technology falling into hostile hands, the devices had sufficient yield to make any attempts at salvage a waste of time.

  Many of their ships had already been captured by Humans and turned against the Grays, but that only served to give the devices a new purpose. If a Gray captain was faced with the boarding and capture of his ship, then his responsibility, indeed the responsibility of every Gray aboard, was to destroy the vessel and deny its use to the enemy.

  The blast tore a massive hole in the geometric lattice-work of the station’s frame and the few segments that still held the gigantic ring intact had suffered under the same cyclical stresses as the hull panels had.

  The moons were both on the other side of Nurazhal and their combined pull, already translating all the way around the shipyards, made short work of the few remaining frame segments, severing the circle, leaving a circular shaped line segment and one end of that line had been given momentum toward the planet.

  In eerie, awe-inspiring silence, one broken end of the station, easily twenty kilometers in width, began drifting lower than the other, girders, conduits and conveyors tearing apart as the two ends moved past each other, trailing debris.

  The dropping end accelerated, now several kilometers below its twin as it led the way toward the killing atmosphere below.

  ***

  NGark stood with his feet a little closer together.

  It had to be the small-arms fire, because whatever had caused the damage hadn’t shown up on their sensors.

  Though the Humans didn’t know it, their foolish gesture of firing from their bows with small arms had managed to doom a marvel of engineering. A station that had taken Gray engineers three and a half centuries to build was now spiraling to its death because of 10mm rounds from an assault rifle.

  And a healthy dose of unfavorable probability.

  Though it would take a few days for the station to completely deorbit, there was no saving it and that meant that the massive industrial investment in the surrounding planets had been nullified as well. The Grays could certainly ship the minerals to other locations but they had been optimized to service the yards at Nurazhal. The containers that served the shipyard conveyors wouldn’t work at most other facilities and so changes would have to be made.

  This represented a massive loss to military capacity.

  And NGark would now have to explain why his clever defense had all been for nothing. He doubted his anachronistic mind would save him this time, not when probability had decided to have repeated and unpleasant congress with him.

  Cause for War

  Julia stood in the pickup circle for the command holo of the INV Dark Star. The time for playacting was over and now the Grays would see who was really calling the shots.

  She’d returned to wearing the underarmor suit and the Marines aboard had managed to find her a suit of HMA that she could calibrate to her body. It sat ready in the flag officer accommodations.

  Windemere had done an excellent job, giving the Gray Quorum the impression that the Imperium was now taking an interest in this sector of space, a sector the Quorum claimed as their own despite the massive Human population. Now it was time to make them think that interest went farther back than they had originally estimated. Her presence among the recently arrived Imperial force would have them worried that she may have been scouting for more than just prisoners.

  It would look as though CentCom were searching for a pretext to justify an invasion. Considering their recent meddling in Human space, it wasn’t hard to imagine, unless you knew how sluggish and disinterested the Human command structure really was.

  The generals of CentCom were too involved in the political maneuvers of the senatorial families to care much about a Gray incursion at Irricana and Santa Clara. Even considering the threat posed to circuit production and, by extension, the Imperium itself, they’d simply dispatched a security force and left it at that.

  The Grays didn’t know that, however, and the slugs at CentCom would forget it soon enough when Gray ships once more crossed the Rim in force.

  “Report coming in from Vampire’s call-sign, ma’am.” The comms officer routed it to her station.

  There were two Gray frigates at Uruk, watching over a small fleet of their freighters. A flurry of cargo shuttles were moving back and forth between the freighters and the ground station below where Windemere and his engineers had rescued the Pony Express.

  “Hiding the evidence,” Windemere muttered from his new spot to her left.

  Julia nodded. “Seems you’ve done your job well. They’re worried what we might do if we di
scover how many of our people they’ve killed down there.”

  “It certainly makes a good casus belli.”

  She laughed but it was a dark, chilling sound. “As if they didn’t leave other causes for war strewn about the colonies. Their causing a civil war among Humans springs to mind…” She dragged a copy of her fleet icons to Uruk and set them up in a formation that could box the enemy vessels in against the planet’s gravity well.

  “But this,” Windemere insisted with some force, nodding at the holo, “is far more clear-cut. We don’t need to sell rumors of war when we have footage of wholesale, industrialized slaughter. The media will devour every pixel and beg us for more.”

  Julia made sure the system was recording the holo feed. A shot of the Grays scrambling to hide their atrocities would make a good lead-in. She shivered. “Those poor people down there died simply because they couldn’t be conditioned,” she said. “Their legacy will be the downfall of those who killed them.”

  She gave Windemere a nod then unmuted her channel to the rest of the fleet. “All call-signs, this is General Urbica. Stand by to initiate the engagement.”

  She double checked to ensure that each ship had the coordinates she’d assigned them and pressed the hovering icon to initiate the fleet wide micro-jump.

  The stars shimmered out of focus, barely blurring into the bluish gray of full distortion before winking back into view. She pressed another icon and every ship in her fleet launched their aviation assets, even the gunboats who only had a few small shuttles with point defense armament.

  The squadrons of the INV Dark Star began to swarm out from three launch portals and the Iron Hand fighters were the first to turn toward the Gray ships.

  The fleet had arrived flank-on to the two defensive ships and they had the gravity gauge on them. The Humans could approach the Grays with the assistance of Uruk’s pull but the Grays had the planet at their backs and could only try to claw their way up out of the planet’s gravity well.

  “Hailing channel,” she ordered.

  A Gray shimmered into view in front of her. “This is Brigadier General Julia Urbica of his Imperial Majesty’s Marines,” she announced. “We have credible evidence of illegal confinement being carried out at this site. You are ordered to cease all activity and stand by for inspection teams. Any failure to comply will be construed as a hostile act.”

  She cut the channel.

  “By now,” the tactical officer said, “they know what we do with the ships we catch carrying victims. It only stands to reason that they’d… Tamade! They did it. The frigates both destroyed themselves rather than fall into our hands.”

  Sour-faced, Windemere handed Julia a credit chip.

  “Secure those freighters. I’ll be on the surface with the evidence team.” She turned to leave.

  “And our Marines,” Windemere added forcefully.

  She waved a hand noncommittally as she left the bridge.

  ***

  “It’s right through here,” Pulver told her, leading the way out onto an open walkway where the rain pounded down on them. “Stay clear of that gate at the end. It kills whoever comes in contact with the field it generates.”

  Steeling herself, Julia stepped to the railing on her left and looked over. She recoiled, raising a hand to her mouth. The mound of skeletons and decaying bodies staggered the imagination.

  She’d seen death before, even caused quite a lot of it herself, but the sheer unthinking magnitude of what the Grays had been doing here tied her stomach in knots. One small skeleton still grasped the rotted remains of a stuffed toy and she fought to keep from imagining what the victims must have felt as they were marched toward the gate.

  The camera orbs had been following her since the micro-jump that had brought them here, but there was no need to tailor her actions to them now. Her true reaction to the spectacle spoke volumes that words could never match.

  Finally, after mastering her rebellious stomach, she stepped back to the railing and a sensor tech on the Dark Star nudged the cameras forward to show what she was looking at.

  Julia’s grip on the railing was turning her knuckles white, though it wasn’t visible to the cameras, not in the driving downpour. A camera lowered to capture her in a close profile shot, catching the rage in her eyes.

  She’d heard of this place from Windemere and his men. Daffyd had also described the place in horrific detail and she’d known it would be useful when they were ready to push the Quorum into a full war with the Imperium. Remembering how she’d planned to use this atrocity now threatened to bring her to tears.

  These people had suffered horribly, watching their loved ones die and knowing their moment was coming as well. They didn’t care about borders, policies or inter-species politics; they just wanted to raise their children in peace. Now she would use their pain for her own convenience? To advance her own idea of what the Imperium should have already done after the attacks on Irricana and Santa Clara?

  The rage boiled inside, directed in equal measures against the Grays, CentCom and herself. “No more,” she whispered.

  “No more!” she shouted up into the oppressive rain. “They’ve gotten away with too much already. This stops now.” She looked over to Pulver who was wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

  “Back to the ships,” she ordered. “Get everyone back to the ships, including the Grays we seized down here.”

  The ride back to orbit was a turmoil of noise as the heavy rain lashed at the hull of their combat shuttle. Fifteen Humans they’d found in a holding pen were in the back with her, babbling with excited relief but Julia sat staring at the deck, astonished by the strength of her anger. She struggled to channel it, to forge it into a tool.

  The pounding of the rain abated and the rescued Humans looked out into the blackness, jeering and cursing at the sight of Gray freighters.

  When they landed inside the Dark Star’s hangar deck, she let the others exit the craft first. She walked out past the group who were already beset by a team of medics and headed straight for the forward riser.

  Windemere understood the look on her face when she returned to the bridge. He’d been down there himself. He gestured to a holo interface at an auxiliary helm terminal. “Freighter crews are secured in their own holds and the controls are ready at this station. Our boarding parties are all off the Gray ships.”

  She took a deep breath, letting it rattle out slowly over her anger. She was still furious, but she had it under control. She’d stick to the plan for its own sake, not simply to slake her rage. “Auxiliary Freighter Control, line them up.”

  She selected the waiting icon for the Sucker Punch. “Sucker Punch, this is Urbica.”

  “Sucker Punch standing by,” Pulver’s voice answered.

  “Open the wormhole, Captain.”

  A circular area in front of the lead freighter shimmered before suddenly stretching to give a view of a stark world. There wasn’t a single place where green things grew and even the seas, if there had ever been any, were gone. It was a massive sprawl of buildings and transportation corridors.

  This world, if you believed the intelligence reports, was the home-world of the Grays and the seat of the Quorum.

  She opened a general channel. “This is General Julia Urbica of His Imperial Majesty’s Armed Forces. My forces are currently in orbit around a planet listed in the convention annexes as Uruk and we are deeply disturbed by what we have found here.”

  She touched a blinking green icon. “We are sending you a copy of the report we have made for our Emperor. In it, you will see the monstrous scale of the crimes committed against our people.

  “You have been seizing Humans and conditioning their minds to keep the colonial civil war going – a war you created for your own convenience. Those who proved resistant to the process were either used as research subjects or killed outright.

  “We have seized four freighters that were engaged in an attempt to remove the bodies and equipment at your facility. Under
our standing orders, we are entitled to seize such ships and deal with the crews as we see fit; however, the vessels are tainted by what was done here. They are of no worth to us and so we send them back to you.”

  The officer at the auxiliary control, upon hearing her declaration to return the ships, activated their engines, sending the four Gray freighters through the wormhole, directly into the atmosphere of the Gray home-world. He’d already maxed out the nav-shields, not caring if the doomed crews had life-support and the four ships accelerated toward the Gray capital at roughly sixty meters per microday, every microday.

  The inhabitants below would be hearing the faint sonic booms as the ships exceeded the speed of sound while still high in the atmosphere.

  Huge shock-layers of superheated air built up around the bows but the shields protected three of the freighters as they roared toward their final port of call. The fourth, the ship in the lead of the doomed formation, had a poorly aligned emitter and the nav shielding was far weaker than what the Grays mounted on warships.

  As the shock-layer pounded at the bow, a stream of the superheated gasses managed to force its way through, shearing away hull plating and sensor arrays until reaching the forward emitters on the starboard side.

  The shielding collapsed entirely on that side of the freighter and the incredible energy of the shockwave was unleashed on the interior of the vessel, shattering everything in its path. Within a matter of heartbeats, there wasn’t enough left to even pose a navigational hazard for the following ships, just a cloud of fire and smaller debris that nav-shielding could easily deal with.

  The remaining three freighters punched through the fireball and continued along on their path. Where they would strike was a matter of pure chance. Rather than attempt to locate any strategic target, Julia had simply ordered the Sucker Punch to open a direct wormhole. She’d been tempted to crash them into the Quorum chambers but she wanted them left alive or the war needed by both the colonies and the Imperium would fizzle 0ut before it even began.