by Ken Britz
“She was,” Lin agreed, checking Cowan’s vitals. “Did I tell you how much I hate N-boats?”
“I can share that sentiment,” Cowan said. They floated together, watching the light from Venger’s drive shrink in the distance. “Countermeasures?”
“He fired torpedoes.” Kenga’s voice was distorted. “He forgot to set them properly, though, and they aren’t Backbreakers. Your Captain Rogers fried them in thrust wake.”
“You missed an interesting few minutes while you were napping,” Mitchum agreed.
“Oh, I think being shot and nearly being time sliced is enough excitement for me,” Cowan said, her voice slowing from the medical cocktail Lin was feeding her.
“How in Hel did you manage that?” Lin asked.
“Our captain is crazy. He wanted to stop you, badly,” Cowan’s breathing slowed and deepened. She felt like she was floating on a cloud. Well, she was, in a way. “Do you think it was worth it?”
“I’m not sure any of this is worth what we’re paying,” Dr. Lin said.
“Mm. I am finding it really hard not to like you, you know,” Cowan said. “I’m very tired.”
“It’s all right. I’m putting you into a medically induced coma to do what I can to treat you.”
“I’ll be okay?”
“You’re floating around in space with a couple of Hegemonic subspacers and no ship.”
Cowan chuckled, feeling absurd and light. “You got me there.”
She started to hum ‘Eternal Father,’ trying to remember the words…
Epilogue
Galactic League Shipyard Orbital Alexandria
Rigel B Habitable Zone Orbit
1200 U.Z.
1255.01.15 A.F.
For the last few weeks, Kenga had wished she was dead. But at some point, she stopped. The GLF had extracted the genome sequenced message from her body. They took many samples of her blood as backup and then began the real treatment to eradicate the Admiralty-induced cancer.
Dr. Lin visited her often, though as Hegemonic Federation Fleet personnel, she was technically a prisoner of war. Since she was a flight surgeon and had treated Kenga for the last month, they frequently consulted her while restoring Kenga’s genetic sequence. It was kind of the Galactic Fleet to put her on the road to recovery. She was sure it was self-interest as much as it was goodwill. Few people at the shipyard orbital facility spoke to her in the days that followed. She still didn’t know what the outcome was at Eagle Nebula. Was Cowan a widow?
She was depressed. She’d traded her ship for her mission and lost a quarter of her crew. From what Cowan had told her, Gunnar Tan had hunted Reed down instead of getting off Kuro in those last few moments. There had been no beacon for his spacesuit or Jin’s. Some had died attempting to repel the boarders, others in the collision with Venger. The door whispered opened and Captain Rogers strolled in, a case tucked under his arm.
“Captain,” Rogers said.
“Just Karine, Captain,” she replied for the twentieth time.
“Just Jolly,” Rogers countered, sitting down.
“Any word from Eagle Nebula?”
“Nothing yet, and until a ship returns, anything we hear is likely to be propaganda,” he said, opening his chess set with a twist. It unfolded and expanded. “I won’t lie. It’s been a month. That’s an unusually long time, even for a major fleet action. Intelligence is looking for answers.”
Kenga’s lips pressed into a line. They had sent ships. She had a sinking feeling there were no fleets at Eagle Nebula. Not anymore, which seemed ludicrous and impossible. Still, she was a ship’s captain, and she should act like a proper captain. “How’s Venger?”
“Beat to hell. I don’t know if we can salvage her, though she’s in much better shape than Marengo Orca is, I can say that much. Orca’s the first of her sister ships to die in battle.”
“I’m sorry for her crew,” Kenga said and meant it.
Rogers nodded. “I was angry. Everyone is angry when they see friends killed in action. I never liked war, and I especially hate this one.” He paused, stroking his beard thoughtfully.
Kenga remembered those first days after she was brought aboard Venger and taken to the orbital. She’d been treated humanely, but Venger’s crew had lost friends and shipmates aboard Orca. She was thankful that Lin put her into a medical coma for most of the transit. Something in her had changed, though. That feeling, that need, the bloodlust was gone. Had it gone with the genomic message, or had she really overcome it?
She sat up and shooed a persistent med bot away. It made a fussy noise and scuttled off. She ran fingers through her blond hair, feeling a strength in her limbs she hadn’t felt in months. Her skin had lost the pallor of death. She was antsy.
“Care for some tea?” Rogers said.
“I’d love some,” Kenga replied. “How’s my crew?”
“Cowan is checking on them as we speak. With Venger in the shipyard, she’s as antsy as you are. She and Jackie Traynor from Marengo Orca are conspiring over something. You can and can’t trust your execs.” His eyes twinkled.
“That’s true.” Kenga found she could banter with Jolly, despite the swath of destruction she cut with Kuro Hai. It was a testament to his decency and understanding.
“I’ve been studying your revised intra-system hop theory,” Kenga said, picking up the terminal they’d provided for her during convalescence.
“I thought you wanted to sleep less, not more,” Rogers said.
“I confess I’m not a very good student of fold-space mathematics, but the Jovian Lagrange One point’s proximity and the Kuro’s impeller distortion collapsing the wave function to form another probability? I don’t understand half of it and the rest of it doesn’t jibe with my own knowledge.”
“I’m still working on the mathematics of the event. I had hoped we’d arrive somewhere near the Jovian, Rigel B, or Rigel colony itself…” Rogers shrugged. “It was an act of desperation. Most will think us lucky that we hopped into you. Or unlucky, depending on your point of view.” He tugged on his beard in thought. “I don’t like the idea of luck. It doesn’t suit the mathematician in me.”
“Your boldness suits the command star, Jolly.” Kenga tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “And luck favors the bold.”
The door opened and Lin came in with tea.
“You might have me at that. How does the old saying go? ‘I’d rather be lucky than good.’”
“I heard something about being lucky?” Dr. Lin said.
“Two shipless captains sharing over their profound misfortune,” Rogers said.
The tall, silver-haired Admiral Odom was behind Dr. Lin. Jolly made a move to get up, but Odom waved him off. “Still at this, Jolly?”
“She’s more fun than JEM,” Rogers admitted. “And captains without ships must commiserate, sir.”
Odom smiled faintly. He was from OSI—Office of Spatial Intelligence based in Rigel B. He watched Kenga in a way that seemed both interested and disinterested.
All warfare is deception, Kenga thought.
Lin put the tea down and poured three cups. “Tea, admiral?”
“Yes, please,” the Admiral said and Lin handed him a cup.
“I lost my personal reserve when Kuro went down, except for what I had in my kit.”
He breathed in the tea’s aroma and sipped. “The blue cinnamon is… very Midgard-Sekai.”
Lin bowed her head.
“Indeed,” Odom said, as if to say things were not always adversarial between the Hegemony and the Galactic League.
“How are you?” Dr. Lin asked Kenga.
Kenga wasn’t sure how to answer that. She too thought of Midgard-Sekai—of home, but she knew if the GLF had its way, the days on her racing yacht were over. The long recovery and the lack of a ship seemed to have cured her of her desire to go home. “Still glad I talked you into coming along?”
Dr. Lin smiled. Her hair had returned to its youthful ebony sheen, and she caressed Kenga’
s cheek. “You came out of it all right.” Her smile was tinged with sadness. Lin wasn’t immune to the realities of war, either. If anything, she was more attuned to it than Kenga had been, only Kenga hadn’t realized it until now. “No more Sea Duty,” she said.
“Good. I’ll tell Thor he can use your yacht for a bit longer.”
“Just a bit, I think. Thank you for not letting the proconsul kill me.” Even the thought of Reed made her throat constrict.
Lin waved a hand. “The euthanasia thing? Oh, Admiral Zeng warned me during your therapy. Some new compliance controls the Hegemony instituted in the last few solyars. I’m just glad I’d had a chance to replace the cocktail in your suit with a sedative. Your reaction was a bit worse than I anticipated…” Lin murmured. “I thought I’d lost you, you know. If Atarashi hadn’t seen from Reed’s terminal that your euthanasia system had been triggered, I don’t think we’d be talking.”
Kenga drank, warming herself against the chill from thinking about a ‘compliance system’ she’d had no knowledge of.
Admiral Odom glanced down at Rogers. “Before you get to your game, Jolly, I’d like to speak with Captain Kenga.”
Rogers reclined. “Of course, sir.” He rose.
“No need to leave,” Odom said. “We’ve decoded the message and the data it contains is… significant. Are you aware of the content spliced into your genome, Karine?”
“I am aware of the intent, but not the complete message. The High Admiralty deemed it too secret,” Kenga said, frowning. “I can only assume that if the High Admiralty risked treason to send the message to you in that manner that it was extremely important.”
Odom sighed. “I wish I understood all the data in the message, but there’s a lot, and in such detail that we cannot mistake it for deception.” He sipped his tea, and something flashed in his eyes. Fear, perhaps? “No, I believe you when you say you don’t know the contents of your own genes, Karine. God and gods help us now. As a subspacer, you may curse me for what it means to your subspace fleet.”
“Is there anything I can do? I’ll testify at my tribunal, if necessary.”
“I’ve drafted a message to the Chief of Space Operations to offer a truce and to discuss unifying the fleets again. It is of critical importance this message not be ignored. While we may feel our differences are great… they are nothing compared to what we face.” He set down his cup, spilling the last of his tea. “If there are any interstellar fleets left, that is. The CSO will also reach out to the Galactic League and parley with the Triumvirate directly. If that fails, I imagine it would be time for the Fleet to reunite with its Hegemony brethren for a greater cause.”
The admiral pulled out a terminal and held it up.
Kenga stared at it. “Have Venger and Marengo Orca seen the message?” she asked.
“I have not,” Rogers admitted.
“I’ll get Traynor up to speed later,” Odom said.
“Let’s see it, then,” Kenga said, and accepted the terminal. She tapped the message. There was her secret operational order at the top of the message:
URGENT FOR COMGALFLEET
FROM COMHFSSFLEET HIGH ADMIRALTY
SUBJECT SPECIAL MISSION CAPTAIN KENGA OF HFSS KURO HAI…
The message spooled, detailing Kenga’s primary mission to deliver the genomic message superseding her orders of record to destroy the Alexandria orbital shipyard. Next was a long video stream which made up the bulk of the genomic coding that almost killed her.
As Kenga watched, a knot in formed in her stomach and tightened. The message wasn’t all that long, perhaps an hour’s worth of spool, but the final image was disturbing. It had to be the distortion from translating to real space, but the looming shape… the gaping maw of the subspace creature was unmistakable. Its size dwarfed the attack fin that observed it. Annotations estimated that the creature was in the petaton range, though mass calculations were difficult when subspace was involved. Could that be right? It was the size of a small moon. Afterward, detailed annotation regarding the source of the message—a subspace ship that had gone missing long before the war—a hundred solyars ago and recently recovered by a Hegemony deep research vessel. That they had found the message was sheer luck. Next came an assessment from the OSI division, correlating space whale song to this massive subspace creature and, a reexamination of the fate of hundreds of subspace vessels lost in deep subspace transitions. The spike in losses formerly thought to be a result of increased patrol activity was due to these subspace creatures. Ships like the Kuro Hai had become the hunted, but there were also reports of real space fleet vessels, mostly large, massing in the high megaton range vanishing. The wealth of data with the subspace creature as the lynchpin was compelling.
It had been a long time since Kenga had been awed by vastness. Her first space flight in her youth, her first interplanetary trip, her first transit to a shipyard orbital, her first fleet demonstration of firepower, even her first translation in subspace—all of these experiences were solyars old, but the vastness of the enemy, and the sheer scope of the threat made her feel tiny. She was plankton in an ocean where larger things lurked in the deep. She shivered.
This was what struck fear into the heart of the High Admiralty, and by Odom’s reaction it would have the same impact on the Galactic League CSO.
“We need to get the Fleet back together,” Kenga said. “Nothing else matters now. All this strife, this war, isn’t shit compared to what’s out there. It’s nothing. If this thing eats ships like a whale eats krill, there won’t be any Fleet left. Hel, what if that’s what’s happened in the Eagle Nebula?”
“That’s our concern, Captain,” Odom said. “We’re up against something we don’t understand and it turns our world on its head. We’ve got to redesign all of our ships. Create new sensors that can find these things in subspace. Maybe even instruments that we can use to talk to them.” He exhaled. “It’s staggering, but one thing Mercer is right about—we need the Fleet back, and I’m willing to commit the GLF to making it happen. If the Fleets are gone, we need to build a new one. We’ve caught this thing’s attention, and if we don’t act…” he trailed off, out of words.
The source of the space whale song had been found, and it was hunting them.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my family for their support and encouragement. Thanks to Ellen Campbell for her editorial expertise and to my wife for her proofreading work. Thank you to everyone who endured the early drafts of my sequel novel: Amber & John Daughtry, Tom Dickerson, and Marcus Gioe.
A special thanks to my readers, who’ve taken a chance on a new writer!
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Ken Britz is an engineer who writes stories working to be a writer who engineers plots. He’s an emerging author writing cross genre science fiction and fantasy. He currently lives with his family in Long Island, NY.
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