Silent Order: Wraith Hand

by Jonathan Moeller

  “Maybe,” said Caird. “That’s something for the Silent Order to sort out once we’ve get the machine to them.” He smiled. “You’ll have your work cut out for you, Captain March.”

  “You’ve been to Monastery Station before?” said Vasquez.

  “Several times,” said March. He had been there as a privateer and an operative of the Silent Order, but he had also been there when he had still been an Iron Hand and joined to the Final Consciousness. “None of the visits were pleasant. Preferably, we can get the reactor repaired. If we can’t, we can get a ride on a container freighter back to Calaskaran space.”

  “Is there really that much traffic through Monastery Station?” said Vasquez. “I would think a sane man would not want to trade under the guns of an insane AI.”

  “There is a great deal of trade through the Eschaton system,” said March. “Not much of it from the Kingdom of Calaskar, but many ships from other powers. The Custodian may be insane, but it enforces peace on Monastery Station, and on the frontiers, peace is rare enough that many think visiting Eschaton worth the risk.”

  “Well, the plan seems sound to me,” said Vasquez. “Not that we have much choice.”

  “No,” said March. “We do not.”

  He looked at Caird, considering how to best raise the topic.

  “Captain Vasquez,” said Caird, “I think Captain March wants a word alone with me. Why don’t you make sure that your men are settled in? I will join you in a few moments.”

  The woman leaned against the wall and smiled, her face shadowed beneath her long dark hair.

  “Are you sure, sir?” said Vasquez.

  “I’m quite sure,” said Caird. “We’re all loyal men of the Kingdom of Calaskar here.”

  “And if I plan treachery,” said March, “I won’t be able to do much against six Marines in power armor.”

  “I suppose not,” said Vasquez. He got to his feet. “Very well, sir. Call if you need assistance.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Caird.

  Vasquez left, the galley door clanging shut behind him.

  For a moment, March and Caird stared at each other. The only sound came from the rasp of the air circulators and the vibration of the hyperdrive through the ship.

  “Well,” said Caird with a smile. “What shall we talk about?”

  “You introduced everyone,” said March, looking at the woman, “but not your girlfriend.”

  Caird’s smile widened. “I don’t presently have a girlfriend, Captain March.”

  “She’s not your girlfriend, then?” said March, looking at the woman. She only smirked at him.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Caird, watching him with amusement.

  “If she’s not your girlfriend,” said March, getting to his feet, “you won’t mind if I do this, will you?”

  He walked across the galley, stopped before the woman, and reached out his right hand to flick her forehead.

  And as he expected, his hand passed right through her as if she was not there.

  The woman’s smirk sharpened.

  Out of curiosity, March lowered his right hand. His hand of flesh had passed through her without any sensation. He raised his metal left hand and passed one finger through her forehead, and this time he did feel something. His left arm felt neither pain nor pleasure, but the cybernetic interface reported the sensations to his brain. The sensation felt sort of like a cold buzzing, as if a faint electric current had gone through his fingers.

  The woman’s smirk turned into a puzzled frown, and then she nodded.

  “He has Machinist components in him, Mal,” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Caird. “I rather thought he might. Well, Captain March? Shall we be honest?” He smiled. “We can share our conclusions about one another, and see if we are correct.”

  “You’re a Navigator,” said March.

  “I can hear the capital letter in that title,” said Caird. “Do you happen to know what a Navigator is?”

  “A secret corps within the Calaskaran Royal Navy,” said March. “The Navigators can fly faster, and more importantly, calculate hyperspace more accurately than even the most powerful navigational computer. The reason for that,” March pointed at the woman, “is her.”

  “Behind every good man is a woman, is that it?” said Caird.

  “No,” said March. “She’s not a woman. She’s not even human. She’s a macrobe, a dark energy-based entity from hyperspace.”

  “He is perceptive,” observed the woman to Caird.

  “Do you know what that means?” said Caird.

  “Any human traveling through hyperspace is susceptible to possession from the macrobes,” said March. “Usually, macrobe possession results in drastic physical mutation and homicidal insanity. Dark energy resonators generate a field that protects a ship traveling through hyperspace from macrobes.” He looked at the woman. “Though not you, apparently.”

  She smiled. “I’m special.”

  “But in the case of Navigators,” March continued, “the macrobe possession results in something different. You don’t turn into a monster. Instead, it's more like a symbiosis. You get a measure of precognition and some control over dark energy currents, which lets you calculate hyperspace jumps of incredible accuracy.” He looked at the woman. “And your macrobe manifests in a human image.”

  “She prefers to be called Elizabeth,” said Caird.

  “I do,” said Elizabeth.

  “Do you happen to know how Navigators are made?” said Caird.

  “I have no idea,” said March.

  “That’s good,” said Caird. “If you did, I would probably have to shoot you in the head. Navigators are one of the Kingdom of Calaskar’s biggest tactical and strategic advantages against enemy powers, especially the Machinists. You’re only allowed to know how Navigators are created if you’re in the Admiralty, you’re a Navigator, or if you happen to be an eyewitness to the creation of one. The King might know, too, but I haven’t asked him.”

  “I know,” said March, remembering. “That was how the Calaskaran Royal Navy won the battle at Martel’s World. The Navigator guiding the Calaskaran fleet managed to calculate a jump right into the middle of the Machinist capital ships.”

  “They never saw it coming,” said Caird with a smile. “Blew the hell out of their carriers before they even realized that they were screwed. Broke the back of their main battle fleet, and they haven’t been able to launch an offensive against the core Calaskaran worlds ever since.”

  “That was you?” said March.

  “Yes, that was me,” said Caird. “It was a hell of a battle.”

  “What are you doing out here?” said March. “A Navigator shouldn’t be picking up deliveries.”

  “The Admiralty takes the threat of this machine of yours that seriously,” said Caird. “It would be helpful if we knew what it did.”

  “Damned if I know,” said March. “There was a computer inside it unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I think it might be an alien device.”

  “I would like to see it,” said Caird.

  “Yeah,” said March. “Maybe that macrobe of yours can sense something about it.”

  “Before we do,” said Caird. “It’s my turn. Your guesses about me were right. Let’s see if I’m right about you.”

  “All right,” said March.

  “You used to be part of the Machinist hive mind,” said Caird. “You must have broken away, else you would have visible cybernetic implants. Other than the hand, that is. But you must have some left beneath the skin, and you almost certainly have some Machinist nanotech left in your blood and nervous system. That’s how you can see Elizabeth and communicate with her. The nanotech must let you detect some dark energy.”

  “Yes,” said March.

  “And since you wear that glove and bracer on your left hand,” said Caird, “that makes me guess your entire left arm is cybernetic…which, in turn, means you used to be an Iron Hand.”<
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  Elizabeth raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes,” said March again.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Caird drummed his fingers on the table. “A former Iron Hand in the Silent Order. Guess I don’t know everything.”

  “Does anyone?” said March.

  “So how does a former Iron Hand wind up in the Silent Order?” said Caird. “You don’t have to tell me, but I am curious.”

  “Martel’s World,” said March. “I was wounded there. Ended up in the slums. I thought they would kill me. Instead, they took care of me. Then the Final Consciousness bombed Martel’s World to keep it from joining the Kingdom.”

  “I saw it happen,” said Caird in a quiet voice. “They fired thermonuclear missiles at the planet as they fled the system, hundreds of them. An entire civilization, gone in minutes.”

  “After that…” March stared at the wall for a moment. “After that, I was finished. Breaking away from the Final Consciousness is difficult, but I did it. I thought it would get me killed, but I didn’t care, and as it happens, I got away before they could kill me. The Silent Order found me, and I’ve been doing this ever since.”

  “Hell of a story,” said Caird. “From Iron Hand to…Alpha Operative, is it?”

  “It was,” said March. “I lived it.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” said Elizabeth.

  “She can read minds, is that it?” said March.

  “I don’t actually know.” Caird stood up, boots clanging against the deck as he caught his balance. “Macrobes aren’t native to this dimension, and the physical universe is as alien to them as hyperspace is to us. Everything she knows about this level of reality is filtered through my perceptions.” He shrugged. “So, either she know you’re not lying, or my subconscious thinks you’re not lying and she’s repeating what she picked up from my subconscious.”

  “Well,” said March to Elizabeth. “Which is it?”

  She smiled. “You’re not lying.”

  March grunted and looked at Caird.

  “The macrobes are enigmatic like that,” said Caird. “Well, whatever the reason, I do believe you, Captain March. I think it is necessary that we cooperate to get that device into the hands of Admiralty. You’re confident we can find transport from Monastery Station?”

  “Yes,” said March. “Everything is for sale on Monastery Station. Weapons, drugs – anything. Except slaves. The Custodian forbids that. But if you wanted to sell your soul, you could probably find a buyer.”

  “Well.” Caird grinned and looked at Elizabeth. “In my case that would be two for the price of one.” She didn’t laugh, but she did look amused. March wondered if macrobes had a sense of humor. Given that when they possessed humans, they usually went on murderous rampages, he found the thought odd.

  “You should probably have a look at the machine,” said March. “That way, if I’m killed, at least someone else will know what is going on.”

  “Yeah,” said Caird.

  “Do you want to bring Captain Vasquez in on this?” said March.

  Caird hesitated and then shook his head. “Not yet. Not unless we have to. Vasquez is a solid man, and so is Perry and the other Marines. That said, those damned Machinists were waiting for us over Tamlin’s World. They knew right where to find us.”

  “You think there was a traitor on the Covenant?” said March.

  “Might have been,” said Caird. “If there was, the Machinists probably picked him up from the lifeboats. And out of two thousand crewers on the ship, it’s unlikely that one of the seven on our lifeboat was the traitor. But better safe than sorry.”

  “Agreed,” said March, thinking of the Covenant burning in space over Tamlin’s World. “We’ve had too much sorry already today. This way.”

  He led the way through the dorsal corridor and back down the ladder to the cargo bay. Vasquez and Perry and the Marines had already set up a camp by the hatch and were in the process of running maintenance and diagnostics on their suits of power armor. Power armor was highly effective in combat, but it required a lot of maintenance.

  “Captain, Sergeant,” called Caird. “A moment of your time, please.”

  Vasquez and Perry joined them at the base of the ladder as Elizabeth climbed down, which March thought odd, since she was incorporeal, and then put it out of his mind. Vasquez was frowning, and Perry looked attentive. He put March in mind of a puppy awaiting attention. Of course, that puppy had probably killed quite a few enemies in combat.

  “Sir?” said Vasquez.

  “I’m going to inspect our cargo,” said Caird. “Make sure we’re not interrupted.”

  “Sir,” said Vasquez.

  March led the way to the far side of the cargo hold, to the door that secured the strong room. The Tiger’s strong room wasn’t large, but it was a solid vault of metal, sealed by a massive door. March unlocked the heavy door and swung it open, and stepped with Caird into the room.

  The Machinist device that March had taken from Lorre occupied the center of the vault.

  At Rustbelt Station, the device had been strapped to an unremarkable reclining chair that looked as if it had been taken from a dentist’s office. March had left the chair, but he had taken the machinery that had been attached to it.

  The core of the machine was a metal visor, adjustable to the size of the victim’s head. Electrodes ringed the visor, a bundle of wires connecting it to a small cylindrical computer about the size of a can of soup. The computer was connected to a bundle of alien-looking electronics about the diameter of a human head. The machine was powered off, but it still glowed with an odd green light. At the heart of the alien electronics was something that looked vaguely like a metallic green beetle, and March had no idea what it did or even what it was.

  “All this trouble for that little thing,” said Caird.

  Elizabeth stepped past him and squatted next to the machine, gazing at it with fascination.

  “Any idea what it does?” said Caird.

  “None,” said March. “I knew that the victim was going to be strapped into a chair, with that visor attached to her head. After that…well, I wasn’t going to test the machine.”

  “This component,” said Elizabeth, pointing at the thing that looked like a green beetle.

  “What about it?” said Caird.

  “It is giving off a small amount of dark energy,” said Elizabeth.

  “Are you sure about that?” said March. An unregulated source of dark energy on a ship was dangerous. The resonator was working, but if it faltered, that dark energy would draw macrobes like moths to a candle flame.

  “Entirely,” said Elizabeth. “The component is giving off dark energy. Also.” She waved a hand at the beetle-like object. “This portion of the device is not of human manufacture.”

  “It’s Machinist, then?” said March.

  “The Machinists and the drones of the Final Consciousness are just modified humans,” said Caird. “Heavily modified, true, but still human.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Do you know what alien race built this thing?”

  “I do not,” said Elizabeth. “But I do know it is old. Very old. Certainly, it was already old before humans even came to this region of space.”

  “Then the Machinists dug up some ancient alien technology and wired it into this machine?” said March.

  Elizabeth shrugged.

  “Yeah,” said Caird. “I see why you wanted to keep this thing from the Marines, Captain March. At all costs, we have to get this device to the Admiralty.”

  “Agreed,” said March, grimacing.

  Two thousand men had already died aboard the Covenant…or been taken captive to be enslaved by the Final Consciousness.

  He wondered how many other men would die because of this machine.

  Chapter 3: Monastery Station

  The hours of transit to the Eschaton system passed swiftly.

  Vasquez kept his men busy with training and maintenance on their power armor. March could see the tactic for what it wa
s. Every one of the Marines had lost friends and comrades in the destruction of the Covenant, men who if they had survived were now at the tender mercies of the Machinists. Keeping the Marines busy would keep them from brooding upon the disaster.

  Given that trouble almost certainly awaited them on Monastery Station, March appreciated Vasquez’s efforts to keep the fighting edge of his men sharp. The Tiger’s gym got more use than it had in years, and Perry established a schedule for the men to take turns exercising. March reserved a shift for himself at the end of the rotation and made sure to lock the door while he exercised. Caird might have realized that March was once an Iron Hand, but he did not feel the need to share that information with the Marines. If one of the Marines saw his metal arm, they might conclude he was a Machinist agent and shoot him dead.

  When not exercising, March took Caird into the engine room and let Elizabeth look at the dark matter reactor. The macrobe could perceive dark energy in a way that humans could not, and she peered at the heavy mass of the dark matter reactor, circling around it and tilting her head back and forth.

  “Your computer’s diagnosis was correct,” said Elizabeth. “There was a power surge, and the reaction chamber developed a hairline crack. Could you patch it?”

  March shook his head. “It would hold for a few minutes, but the stress of the reaction would erode the patch, and when it failed, the reactor would shut down. It wouldn’t generate enough power for a hyperspace jump, and the stress on the components from the power surge would probably fry the hyperdrive.”

  “Wouldn’t want that,” said Caird, looking at the diagnostics on the master system panel on the far wall. “New reaction chamber alone is going to be expensive. The cost of a new hyperdrive on top of that would be ghastly.”

  March shrugged. “Fortunately, I’m returning seven stranded men of the King’s navy to Calaskaran space. There’s a substantial bounty for privateers who do so.”

  Caird snorted. “You’re a spy. Doesn’t the Silent Order give you the money to live in luxury to maintain a cover story? You know, tuxedoes, casinos, wine, women, that kind of thing?”