Flashpoint (Hellgate)

by Mel Keegan

  He was right, but Travers doubted Vaurien would be much troubled. It was more than a year now since he had done much business with Halfway, and with the Colonial Wars and the Zunshu ahead of them, the ire of a Freespacer crew was the last thing he would fret about.

  A whoop over the comm announced a victory for the Mako. It was Ramon, handling van Donne’s guns with his usual aplomb. In the melee of icons surrounding the Wastrel, four red markers had changed to orange as Freespacer ships were disabled, and three of these were drifting away or limping on partial power.

  “Got the bastard,” Ramon crowed, jubilant and smug at once. “Wastrel, you’re clear. You got the one big sonofabitch? The rest are crud-buckets, ignore ’em.”

  The big ship had to be Belczak’s own. “Looks like it used to be Fleet cruiser,” Marin was saying as he viewed the scan data. “It’s been hybridized, and it was an old, old type to start with. Most of a century old, if the engine signature’s anything to go by.”

  The result was another mongrel ship, part warship, part freighter, part industrial tug – big, powerful, dangerous, but cumbersome with badly-matched technology. It would be a handful to fly, and the Wastrel had already damaged it. Streamers of vapor belched from the engine deck, and as Travers watched, the Wastrel came about to present her port side missile tubes, and launched again.

  Belczak’s ship was not done, and the pilot flew like an old Fleet hand. The ship staggered as five Shrike missiles impacted, but she rolled over to present a shield of interlaced Arago fields and let the blast push her rather than fighting it. It sent the great mass of the ship into a corkscrew tumble, and when she righted, her bow was neatly astern of the Wastrel’s engine deck.

  “Richard!” Marin barked. “Watch him!”

  “What,” Rodman demanded, “makes you think it’s a guy? Didn’t anybody tell you, Marin, the best pilots in Fleet are women.”

  The Wastrel was turning, but the Arago screens were already tightly overlapped around the engine deck and sterntubes, and the predictable brace of missiles erupted, sun-bright but ineffective. Moments later the aft railguns opened up, and Travers’s irises shriveled at the streamers of tracer. The Freespacer’s bow took the worst of the fire, and only the industrial armor saved her.

  The comm and sensor arrays raveled into a mess of girders and dishes and at last, wounded, venting several kinds of gas, she broke off. Flanked by the motley assortment of ships, she drove away across the blinding horizon of Celeste.

  “Good enough,” Rodman judged. “Ingersol?”

  “Heading home,” he said tersely. “We’re comin’ in with casualties, boss, but –”

  “I can handle it,” Grant’s voice said loudly. “I spent two days setting up a full Infirmary, including an OR, inside our quarantine perimeter. Just let these people take care of their own – there’s three combat medics and two company sergeants among ’em. We’ll be good.”

  And Vaurien: “You’re in charge, Bill. You need something, you tell me what, when and where.”

  “Cryogen tanks,” Grant said in dark tones. “There’s two I can’t fix. They’re gonna need full-on surgery, which means Borushek, which means they’re tanked or they’re just plain dead.”

  Like any working industrial vessel, the Wastrel carried four tanks, and without hesitation Vaurien said, “I just tasked the drones, you’ll have your tanks as soon as you unload. Anything else?”

  “Nope. Just the time and space to get this done.” Grant was breathing heavily, distracted, clearly working hard. “Tully, step on it, man, or we’ll lose another one.”

  And Ingersol: “You heard the doc. We’re comin’ home like a missile, boss. Standby the hangar detail.”

  Everyone out here, with the exception of Jazinsky herself, was Fleet trained. Everyone shared the memories. Travers and Marin had only to stand back, mere spectators, and watch as the old training took over. The Shanghai survivors themselves were eager to work. Better than Grant, they knew who was injured, and how. Some were nursing old injuries from the Battle of Ulrand, others had been hurt in the mines, even in the sexshops. Three combat medics very like Grant himself were working beside him as Ingersol took the tractor home, and the two sergeants had called the rest to order. Travers closed his eyes and acknowledged a small shudder as memories of the last, frantic hours of the Intrepid overtook him.

  Marin’s hand on his arm jolted him back to reality, and he looked into the wide hazel eyes, grateful for the concern. Rodman was shutting down systems, the Hong Lung was docked on where it had begun, and Hubler had just hoisted his weight onto the legs he hated. “You okay?” Curtis asked softly.

  “I’m all right,” Travers said ruefully, “but if you think I’m ever going to forget the Intrepid –”

  “You want to forget it?” Hubler was surprised. “Shit, Travers, I heard about that. You did the best work of your entire life, right then, right there. Don’t you dare forget it.”

  “Keeps him awake nights,” Rodman speculated.

  “So it should,” Hubler said brashly as he stomped aft to the ’lock. “And every time he wakes in a stone-cold sweat, he ought to be tellin’ himself how good he did.” He paused long enough to angle a glance back at Travers. “You don’t think so? You ask any one of those kids who got off the Intrepid alive what they think.”

  One of them was Bill Grant, who was shouting over the comm for the cryogen tanks to be cracked and prepped, and for hands to help lift the casualties into them. The Australian was thick in his voice; he was doing here what he had done on the Intrepid, and Travers felt a thrill of the old camaraderie.

  In the wake of Rodman and Hubler, he and Marin walked back into the cool, quiet, familiar space of the Wastrel. The loop had returned to its normal calm. Jazinsky was on her way aft and down with a gang of drones to collect the containment vessel, and Vaurien was saying to her,

  “So what the hell is that thing, anyway? Is it worth the offer we made for it, in gelemeralds?”

  She answered slowly, musingly. “Worth it? Oh, yeah. But what is it? I’m not sure, Richard. I might have seen something like it before, but the shape and dimensions were different, so I’m only guessing. Let me image it to the molecular level, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “How long?” Vaurien wondered.

  Jazinsky hesitated. “Ask me when we get back to Borushek. And if I don’t know what it is by then – and even if I do! – it’s going straight to Mark Sherratt. Besides,” she added, “Mark still knows one hell of a lot more about these Zunshu devices than I do.”

  “Speculate?” Vaurien invited.

  But she would not. “I told you. Borushek. Speaking of which –”

  “We’re leaving Celeste faster than we came in,” pilot Piotr Cassals said from the flight deck.

  The service lift opened twenty meters from the private cabins and forty from the crew lounge. Travers heard voices from the lounge – van Donne, Rodman, Vaurien – but for the moment he and Marin were headed to their own quarters, where a message was still waiting for them.

  It remained queued in the threedee, just as they had left if after playing Mark Sherratt’s message. As he poured a scotch and soda, Travers spoke to the AI. “Etienne, play Shapiro.” And as he threw jacket and shirt onto the bed, and placed the sidearms back into the case with the care they deserved, the message ran.

  Sitting on the end of the bed, weapons set out on the bronze quilt behind him, Marin frowned at the image as Harrison Shapiro appeared. Behind him was the familiar backdrop of his office in the suite high above the plascrete of Fleet Sector Command. The vid had picked up the early evening sky framed in the vast armorglass windows, where the clouds had gathered for the routine rain storm, and the sternflare of a departing heavy lifter made a bright place in the overcast.

  The stress was showing in Shapiro’s face, Travers thought. He was losing flesh, and a few more flecks of gray had begun to show. He tried to recall the last time he had seen the man smile, and could not. It was a long, long ti
me. Too long. It might take Jon Kim to conjure a smile, bring Shapiro a little peace, if only the transient comfort of a warm body against him in the night. Kim would be good for him, and Travers could only imagine how impatient Shapiro must be to see Velcastra. With an effort he forced his mind back into focus and gave his attention to the threedee.

  “Major Marin, Major Travers.” Shapiro nodded in greeting. “With luck, when this message reaches you, you’ll be on your way back into the Deep Sky, and I’ve asked Captain Vaurien for best speed on your return. You’ll have had the news – three of the frontier outposts are gone. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Zunshu automata are behind the apparent disasters, and of course there is very real cause for fear. A small colony could easily be targeted soon.” His face was grave. “I’ve consulted with the Resalq, and I don’t believe the central hub worlds such as Borushek, Velcastra and Omaru need fear the kind of assault the outposts have suffered, which would have been the work of automata identical to those we fought on Kjorin.

  “The Zunshu machines move in small numbers, never more than twenty at a time, and in a little over a century our homeworlds have become much too complex. Almost every corner or every continent has been developed, which places worlds like Borushek outside the operating parameters of the automata. What I understand as the usual Zunshu tactic – entering a base or a civilian settlement by stealth, passing as the inhabitants, and destroying the facility – would not be effective as a means to erase humans from a world like this one or, say, Omaru. And of course the existing automata resemble the ancestral Resalq, not humans, nor even the re-engineered Resalq whom we know today, so they wouldn’t have any advantage of stealth.

  “Contrary to what you might assume, this is not good news, although we do believe it buys us a little time.” His hands were on the desk before him, loosely clasped. He studied them for some moments and then looked back into the vid pickup. “Since the human worlds have become much too populous, too complex, for automata to expurgate us from them, we must assume the Zunshu will revert to the weapons with which they destroyed the Resalq homeworlds in the early years of the Resalq-Zunshu war.

  “These world-wrecking devices, gravity weapons, were launched from some point on the far side of Hellgate, and we believe it would be safe to assume that such weapons can and will be launched again. However, their deployment will take time.

  “How much time?” Shapiro’s head shook slowly. “There’s no way to be certain, despite the growing body of data, calculation, informed speculation. In fact, we’re reduced to little more than blind hope and reckless speed. The time is now, gentlemen. I will shortly be conferencing with Robert Chandra Liang and many others. Our object is to maneuver the government of the Confederacy – make them meet us in battle in our time, not theirs. The Colonial Wars must be resolved swiftly, because the far greater challenge lies ahead of us.

  “Battlefields, strategies, tactics – all this, I understand. I can plan and fight such a war. Scores of senior officers in the Deep Sky could take my place, and with the new technologies at our disposal, we’re confident that we can make the DeepSky Fleet withdraw, make the government of the Confederacy come to the table and negotiate the terms of a new era.

  “But the Zunshu are another question.” He looked down at his clasped hands for several moments. “Eleven centuries ago, when the Conquistadors arrived in the Americas they faced a native foe of great tenacity, so alien, this foe’s culture and their language were inaccessible. In lieu of a proper name by which to call them, the Spaniards called them simply Apachu, which means ‘enemy.’

  “Like the Conquistadors, we humans have come blundering into regions where we are the intruders. The aliens. We also have met a foe so unknowable, all we can do is call them Enemy – which is the literal translation of the Resalq term, Zunshu – and fight for our existence.

  “The difference for us is that the human population of the Deep Sky now numbers in the billions, and while the Spaniards could easily have withdrawn a mere army from the New World and recognized the sovereignty of the native populations of the Americas, we now have six generations of humans to whom the worlds we terraformed and colonized have long been our homes. And the Zunshu don’t live here, they never lived here, in any case.

  “There is no smallest sign that any world in the Deep Sky was ever colonized by another race before the Resalq, who lived on these same worlds in the fifteen centuries before we arrived. Their relics are everywhere, we live among them. Their worlds have become some of our most popular vacation spots – and the Zunshu?

  “Not even the Resalq ever knew where they are, what they want, what crime humans or Resalq committed, to warrant punishment. Is it the crime of intrusion? Is this Zunshu space, and we’re the invaders? The Resalq specialists say – no. Their civilization developed the hyperdrive seven centuries before the flight of the Ebre'zjim, and no conflict between Resalq and Zunshu took place until contact was made – on the far side of Elarne.”

  There, Shapiro fell silent for a long moment, and Travers could almost hear the thoughts in the man’s head. He looked back into the vid lens then, and his eyes glittered with a light Travers was more accustomed to seeing in Jazinsky, and in Dario Sherratt.

  “It has been agreed,” Shapiro said darkly, “the crime – whatever it was – was committed there, on the far side of the Rabelais Drift, perhaps halfway across the universe. To discover what it was, and to stop the rot, a mission must be launched in the footsteps of the Resalq explorers. Neither we nor the modern Resalq will find the answers here, and we’ll very likely be annihilated while we waste time, trying.

  “The solution might involve negotiation, reparation, apology, fines or damages paid in whatever medium. How does one make payment for the crimes of one’s ancestors, transgressions we can’t even imagine? Crimes,” Shapiro added, “committed by another species, which we humans have begun to pay for with our own blood.

  “Nothing can be decided from here. There is no resolution to be found on this side of Hellgate, and we’re all very much aware the clock is counting down. The most distant frontier colonies are being destroyed, and humans are heading back into the Deep Sky, abandoning the new lodes. There’s gossip, pure conjecture, that something is happening on the far side of the frontier, to which civilians have not been made privy, and naturally, civilians are pointing fingers at the DeepSky Fleet and the Confederacy as the culprits.

  “People are right and wrong at once. Something is going on. The Zunshu are hitting us, hard. But Fleet and the government of Earth are as stubbornly oblivious to the Zunshu threat as they ever were. At this time, elements in public law and media are holding Murchison, Arago, Weiss, Rand and such companies culpable for the loss of the new exploration sites, since these industrial moguls manufacture the generators which could cause such devastation. It’s happened in the past, albeit a long time ago, back in the days of the Auriga drive engine, when numerous ships, military and civilian alike, were lost in implosion events.

  “A major investigation is underway and, at least publicly I’m supporting this because it’ll give the civilian public out here something to obsess about. It’s a quick answer to mollify them in the short term, but it won’t remain watertight for long. The technology will soon be found to be sound. Companies like Arago and Murchison are fighting back by opening their doors and inviting the examiners to come in and check every calculation, every rivet. They’re innocent of all charges, and they won’t be tardy in proving it.

  “Meanwhile the clock, as I said, is counting down. How long do we have before a world-killer weapon literally drops in out of nowhere at Omaru, or Velcastra, or here at Borushek?” His face could have been a mask carved from ivory. He had lost color, and every line was exaggerated. “The Wastrel is under orders to return from Freespace fast. Neil, Curtis, you’re on assignment as soon as you dock – you’re on the Mercury with me. We’re going to Velcastra.

  “My official reason for being there is to attend the memoria
l for Major Vidal. Unofficially, I’ll be meeting with the heads of government from Velcastra, Jagreth and Omaru, arranging the timing of the major battles of these so-called Colonial Wars.” He looked directly into the lens, and his brows knitted. “I’ve had advance warning that the super-carrier Chicago is shipping out of dock after a major refurbishment. The London will be a matter of days behind her, and the new super-carrier Avenger, which is a clone of the Intrepid, is being launched months ahead of schedule.

  “It’s patently obvious that the Confederacy is committing to the Colonial Wars. The carrier battle groups are coming. We simply need to decide where they’ll be deployed, and when, and we’ll do this with declarations of autonomy, and the expulsion of existing governments, on various worlds at various times.”

  Again he paused, and studied his palms. “My own personal security has become of paramount importance. I’m gathering my most trusted people tightly about me, and from this moment, Neil, Curtis, you’ll be with me, in command of a security taskforce you already know and trust. The names of Fargo, Inosanto, Choi, Kravitz, Perlman, Fujioka, are already on your staff. Most of Bravo Company, 159th Airborne, have been promoted and retained. When they discovered the reality of the situation, they chose to stick either with me or with Richard Vaurien, and their moment has come.

  “This,” he said quietly, “is the pivot point for us all. Lai’a is almost ready to launch into the Rabelais Drift. The fuel and alloys we needed have been mined, refined, manufactured in abundance at Alshie’nya. Weapons based on the Zunshu technology are ready to be deployed at the battlefields of our choosing.

  “In a few days I’ll be talking to Mister Chandra Liang, and Senator Rob Prendergast of Jagreth, who will become Premier Prendergast with the changeover in government. He’ll be on Velcastra with his new wife, for the sad duty of attending the memorial for Michael Vidal. You should know that Madam Prendergast, Elaine Osman, is Vidal’s mother, and a celebrity in her own right. She was an aeroball champion, everyone across the Deep Sky knew her.” He sighed audibly, and then set aside the regret. “I’ll also be conferring with an old friend of yours, Colonel Alec Tarrant, formerly commanding the Omaru resistance, based in Hydralis. He has recently been elected to represent Omaru.