Participant Species: Asher in Ordered Space Volume I

by John M. D. Hooper

  “Can’t you tell me?” she asked. “You’re the one who knows where we going.”

  Asher shook his head then realized that the gesture would mean nothing to her. “My communications system is down so the Ferethers can’t detect it. That means I can’t connect to any computer on a Hokozana ship or on Zvezda One that might update our position. There may be a way around that, but I can’t come with anything just now. Where do you put us?”

  Qwadaleemia interacted with the strange console again and made a clicking noise that Asher’s net couldn’t interpret. Turning back to him, she said, “We are approximately two-hundred-sixteen thousand klicks from the coordinates you gave me. The burn was good, so I would say we should come within a few klicks of the point in about twenty-two minutes’ time. Hopefully, we can use the maneuvering thrusters to put us behind the asteroid, if it is indeed there. Will the Ferethers be able to detect that?”

  “If the thrusters use steam, like they would in one of our scouts, then no. At this point, our main concern is not making any light that their passive systems might detect as an anomaly in the star field. Their active systems will most likely be concerned with tracking the Hokozana fleet and other ships in the system. With luck, we won’t be scanned at all.” There was always the possibility that they would be detected and logged as a tiny anomaly in the mass of data that the Ferethers’ computers would be processing. Asher had seen many cases when nearby ships were not tagged as positive contacts until hours or days after a battle, when a computer finally managed to fully analyze its backlog of data. If that happened here, then the Ferethers would know someone had escaped Cierren Cythra in the minutes before they destroyed the planet. He wasn’t sure whether or not that would lead them to suspect Hokozana involvement. Now was not the time to deal with those sort of hypotheticals.

  Qwadaleemia had turned back to the control console. “We use water vapor, of course,” she said. “I—” she paused, focusing intently on some kind of readout. “I think I have located the asteroid. Its albedo is low, but there is a dark patch—two microns wide at this range—on the star field. That must be it.” She fiddled some more with the control knobs and made some more clicking noises. “Updated estimate is twenty minutes, seventeen seconds. I have fired the thrusters to adjust our course slightly. Hopefully we won’t need to fire again until we are right on top of it.” Another pause. “We are out of the shadow of the planet now. I can see the Ferethers.”

  She flicked something and a viewscreen above her head came to life. Asher saw that dark silhouette of Cierren Cythra backlit by Bright and Dim. The on-board computer colorized three tiny green dots in a high orbit coming around the curve of the planet. Three more dots followed. The two little groups—squadrons, Asher supposed—of Ferether ships deployed above the near side of the planet.

  “Can they see this in the cargo bay?” asked Asher.

  “Do they want to?” asked Kaz.

  “There is a viewscreen there as well. They can see what we see,” said Qwadaleemia. “It is for them to decide whether or not to look.”

  The Ferether ships were near-motionless now, having reached their destination orbits. A few moments passed. Asher imagined instructions flying back and forth through the subnet links, targeting models being updated, final sitreps being submitted.

  They were too far away to detect the bombs themselves, but they saw the flashes. One after another, large, round sections of Cierren Cythra were illuminated in bursts that started yellow, grew to white, and faded to orange, then red. Flash after flash marked the detonations of the enormous bombs. “Mass?” asked Kaz, his voice hoarse and strangled.

  “Fission, I think,” said Asher. He tried to keep his voice even, but he wasn’t sure he had succeeded.

  Qwadaleemia said nothing, only stared at the viewscreen in silence.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “We have to be there in just under three hours,” said Asher. “How we get there is up to you.”

  Qwadaleemia seemed slow-moving and hesitant. Watching the bombardment had clearly taken something out of her. Perhaps this was the Cythran equivalent of shock. She looked at Asher, then slowly turned to Kaz, then back to her console.

  Sessareia was hurtling through space again, propelled by a five-minute burn they initiated as soon as the sensors had shown the six Ferether bombardment ships move back into the lee of the planet, presumably to regroup with their main fleet. Two hours and forty-five minutes ahead was the random point in space that Asher had picked in his briefing. Cormorant should be waiting for them there. That was, assuming that Hokozana was still in-system and hadn’t bugged out for fear of the Ferethers.

  Kaz tapped Asher on the shoulder. When Asher turned to face him, the big man leaned in close and whispered, “Are you sure about this? The Old Man isn’t going to like it.”

  “This is the only way I’ll be able to live with myself. I’m not Marcolis, to hand out orders and assignments to everyone with some kind of god-given authority.”

  “It’s corp-given, actually,” Kaz said. “I just wanted to remind you that we’re operatives. I’m not sure this breaks our Loyalty Oaths, but it sure as hell isn’t going to get us a pay raise.”

  Asher locked eyes with Kaz. “I need you on board. You’re not, then we go ahead within the mission parameters and take the Cythrans in, just like we said.”

  Kaz smiled and cuffed Asher on the shoulder. “Why so serious? I didn’t say I’m not on board. I am. I just wanted to be sure you knew the shit we’re going to be stepping into once we’re back on Cormorant.”

  “OK,” said Asher. “Somehow, I knew you’d be with me on this.” He turned back to the Cythran pilot. “The choice is yours, Qwadaleemia.”

  The Cythran considered for a while. “This is not something I can decide alone. I have to put it to my creche. We must act as one if we are going to do this.”

  “Go on back and explain it to them. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  Qwadaleemia slipped past Asher and Kaz and down the passage to the cargo bay. A moment later, Sarudeero made his way forward and took the pilot’s chair. Asher supposed that as a stupid male, he wasn’t part of the creche decision-making process. Strange to think that there was a species for which piloting a spaceship was a routine task that could be comfortably entrusted to a low-functioning individual. He supposed that everyone, including most humans, was a low-functioning individual when compared to the female hyper-geniuses. Not for the first time, he wondered about what he was about to unleash on Ordered Space.

  The discussion in the cargo bay took some time. They were only about forty minutes out from the rendezvous point when Qwadaleemia returned to relieve Sarudeero. “We have decided to go with your plan, Asher. The fate of our species is in your hands, I suppose.”

  Asher thought of Miraneeria, and knew that she was wrong. No matter what he did, he had no power to alter the fate of the Cythran in Cormorant’s medical bay, or of any others who might have been captured by DiJeRiCo. He could do something about the eleven members of the species that were on board this ship, though. “The coordinates I’ve given you are for a point near a moon circling the fifth planet in Bright-Dim, a smallish gas giant. The Zvezda people had a survey base on the moon. According to the system model they gave me, the spot was frequented by small corps, which means it is also going to be a haven for non-corp pirates. Now, a lot of them will have been destroyed during the fighting, especially at the jumpgate, but there are probably some dregs still floating around the system. You get there and stay quiet. Wait for someone to show. Give it enough time, and someone will show up who will know how to get you on an intersystem ship and sneak you through the jumpgate. You’ve got skills that the non-corps will appreciate—you could be in high demand as engineers, mechanics, pilots, or whatever. You’ll have to be careful, though, there’s always likely to be someone hoping to sell you out to Hokozana or DiJeRiCo, or to some other corp—maybe even to the Ferethers. You’ll have to move fast and keep moving. It’s not goin
g to be an easy life. At least, not for a while. My advice is find a small corp that can protect you for a while and sign on with them, but never trust them.”

  “And you Asher?” asked Qwadaleemia, “You and Kaz, what will you do?”

  “Once we’re back on Cormorant, we’ll figure it out.” Qwadaleemia’s expression indicated concern. “We’ll be fine. We always are.”

  The hurtled on in silence for a while. Each lost in his or her own thoughts. Asher supposed that Qwadaleemia was thinking about her home and all the people she had known. He wondered what it would be like, losing everyone in moments like that. He realized that the only person he knew who had been through anything like it was Jaydrupar. The man had distrusted the Cythrans from the moment he heard about them, but now he probably was more capable of understanding them than almost anyone else in Ordered Space. Asher wasn’t sure if that was ironic or not. Maybe it was just depressing.

  When they were ten minutes out from the rendezvous point, Asher and Kaz climbed into the airlock. Asher pulled up the hood on his skinsuit and checked the air supply. He had enough for twelve minutes. If everything went as planned, that would be more than enough. He and Kaz checked over each other’s setup. “You ready?” asked Asher.

  “Just like in the academy, right?” said Kaz. “Like one of those boarding drills.”

  “I suppose. I’ve got to admit, I always thought those were stupid. Who ever heard of ship-to-ship boarding? I never thought I’d need to actually do it.”

  Kaz grunted. “I guess the trainers really knew their shit, huh? They must have known that one day we’d have to jump out of the ship of a doomed race and board a friendly vessel.”

  “Do you think they are?” asked Asher. “Doomed, I mean?”

  Kaz paused as if considering. “No,” he said after a moment, “No, I don’t think they are. Now the Ferethers, on the other hand...”

  Asher laughed. “Yeah, something tells me they just sowed the wind.”

  The light above the airlocks flashed yellow twice, then green. Kaz slammed the heel of his hand on the release, and the door shot open. Asher felt himself plucked from the ship by an immense hand and thrown into the void outside. After a moment’s disorientation, he realized he was looking back at the Sessareia. He watched as a light flickered in her burner. The torch ignited, and the slim, black ship flashed out of his field of view. With a squirt from his oxygen tank, he brought himself around. Another light was growing out of the star field as Cormorant, looking like a tiny model at this distance, cut its torch and applied retro-rockets. Asher uplinked to the ship and started relaying his emergency beacon. He knew that somewhere nearby, Kaz was doing the same.

  As he waited for Cormorant to deploy someone to pick them up, Asher found himself thinking—not for the first time and he suspected not for the last—about the Bone Trees and the weird epiphyte farms. An alien world that he had barely understood was gone now. No one would ever walk there again. His father would never be able to study the biology of the wild Cythrans. Lori would never learn about their customs and language. Someone had played a huge game with the Cythrans, with Qwadaleemia and her people as pawns. The poor Bone Tree people had been irrelevant, they hadn’t even been pieces on the board. Now they were all gone. Asher wondered if he would ever know who the players were. On one side the Ferethers, but who was on the other?

  Back Matter

  You made it! Thanks for reading Participant Species, the first novel in the Asher in Ordered Space series. If you liked the book, please leave a review on its Amazon page.

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