by Tim Waggoner
Mudo turned to look at Hastimukah, and the assessor was surprised to see the anguish in the man’s eyes.
“I am not a sentimental man, Hastimukah, but I greatly respect Kyoto. In many ways, she, Adams, and Memory are the closest things to friends I’ve ever had. If there was anything I could do for her, I would. But there simply is no way to save her! The laws of physics—”
“Are different here, Gerhard,” Memory said. “If the Janus can reach Mei in time, I believe there is a thirty-nine percent chance that we will be able to save her and escape the maelstrom.”
A line of sweat broke out on Mudo’s forehead. “And I suppose the remaining sixty-one percent represents our risk of certain destruction.”
Memory didn’t respond.
Mudo sighed. “I should’ve listened to my mother. Be an asteroid miner, she said. It pays well and the girls go crazy for miners.” Then he smiled at Hastimukah. “All right. Let’s go before I change my mind.”
Hastimukah returned the smile and removed the hand from the scientist’s shoulder. The nanoparticles that had gathered at the tips of his fingers dispersed throughout his body now that they were no longer needed. Hastimukah quickly buckled himself into his seat as Mudo’s hands flew over the Janus’s controls. He would have one hell of a report to give the Ascendancy when this was over—assuming he survived, of course.
“Hold on, Mei. We’re coming to get you.”
Kyoto felt renewed hope, but she quickly suppressed the emotion. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want the rest of you risking your lives on my account. Get out of here while you still can.”
“Sorry, Mei. I no longer have to obey orders if I don’t want to, remember? Now, just sit tight, keep your engines on full thrust, and maintain as stable a position as you can. We’ll do the rest.”
Kyoto wanted to argue further, but she knew that if Mudo, Hastimukah, and Memory had made up their minds, she couldn’t convince them to abandon her, even if that was the most sensible thing to do.
She checked the holoscreen. Like a ball of string that had almost been unraveled, there was little of Rhea’s mass remaining in hyperspace, and the glowing white vortex that had devoured the moon was now the size of a small sun itself. She knew that in mere moments the Defender would be drawn into the maelstrom, and she wondered what it would feel like. Somehow, she doubted it would rank as one of the more pleasurable sensations she’d ever experienced.
It occurred to her then that there was one thing she could do to stop the Janus: she could shut down her engines. Without their thrust, the Defender would be pulled far more rapidly toward the maelstrom—rapidly enough for Mudo and Hastimukah to realize they had no chance of saving her and to pull away before they were caught by the vortex as well.
A sense of calm descended upon her. As a fighter pilot, she knew that she was risking her life every time she climbed into the cockpit. But she was risking it for a reason—to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves and to ensure the survival of her race, one person at a time.
She reached for the controls and shut down her ship’s engines.
A second later she felt a jolt, as if the Defender had been struck by a large object. Sensors indicated that the Janus had pulled up to the starfighter’s starboard side and expanded its energy shield to envelop both craft. The two ships were now linked as tightly as if they’d been fused together, and they’d remain that way until the Janus deactivated its shield.
“Cut me loose!” Kyoto yelled into the comlink. “Without my engines on, I’m just deadweight to you!”
Mudo’s voice came over the speaker. “Then you’d best restart those engines, hadn’t you?”
Kyoto growled in frustration, but she reactivated the Defender’s engines. She wasn’t about to drag the others into the maelstrom with her.
Seconds passed as the two starships struggled to break free of the maelstrom’s pull, but while they managed to slow the rate at which they were being drawn toward the vortex. It was clear that they weren’t going to escape.
“It was too little, too late, I’m afraid,” Memory said. “My apologies, Mei. If it’s any consolation, once we enter the maelstrom, the end will be quick. Unfortunately, due to time-dilation effects, it will seem to take several millennia for us to actually reach the vortex.”
“You really know how to cheer up a gal,” Kyoto said. She wasn’t certain, but she thought she could feel time beginning to slow down already. Her breathing seemed more like the steady hiss of air from an oxy-generator than its usual in and out, in and out. And her pulse felt more like the slow, deliberate beat of a large bass drum, where only seconds ago her heart had been racing. But her thoughts moved as swiftly as ever. Is this what time dilation was like? Would time be slowed almost to a halt while her consciousness continued to exist in a subjective “normal” time? The prospect was horrible—to be immobile but still aware, still thinking, feeling, and remembering for thousands of years as the maelstrom slowly drew them all toward its turbulent energies. It would be like a sentence in hell.
Kyoto wished she’d shut her engines down before the Janus had reached her. At least then her companions wouldn’t have had to share her fate.
A low, dull tone reverberated through the cockpit. Kyoto didn’t recognize it as first because it sounded so different now, but then she realized she was hearing an alarm. Information crawled slowly across the holoscreen: a small squadron of six Manti was approaching. From what she could tell, it appeared they were resistant to the maelstrom’s time dilation effect. If Kyoto could have activated her weapons, she would have, but all she could do was watch as the screen flashed images of the Manti as they came. Because the Buggers flew at normal-time speed, the images displayed on the holoscreen appeared to move normally as well, though there was some distortion as the sensors struggled to process what to them was rapidly changing data.
Kyoto couldn’t identify this caste of Manti right away. They were larger than average, bodies bulbous and bloated, appendages so small as to be almost useless. Yellow stripes ran down the length of their brown carapaces, and they were surrounded by faint auras of hyper-etheric energy.
Then Kyoto remembered. She’d only seen this caste once before, when battling a Manti assault on Mars during the Last Swarm. It was the thinking caste of the Manti, or in GSA slang, “Brain Bugs.” They weren’t especially tough physically, but as long as both the Defender and the Janus were trapped in dilated time and the Buggers weren’t, there was nothing they could do to protect themselves. One good thing: if the Brain Bugs finished them off, at least they wouldn’t have to experience several subjective millennia waiting for the maelstrom to finally claim them.
As the Brain Bugs drew near, they broke formation and encircled the two starships. The auras of hyperetheric energy flared bright, and then the six Brain Bugs unleashed six separate blasts of energy at the Janus and the Defender. But instead of destroying either craft, the Manti energy merged with that of the ships’ shields, turning the latter from blue-white to amber. The Brain Bugs then turned and soared away from the maelstrom, and the Defender and the Janus followed in the Buggers’s wake, as if the two ships were being towed.
Kyoto experienced a moment of dizziness, and then her time sense snapped back to normal. The Manti had pulled them out of the maelstrom’s time-dilation field.
As soon as she could move normally once more, Kyoto activated her ship’s weapons systems. She had no idea why the Brain Bugs had suddenly appeared or why they had chosen to save her and the others, but she knew one thing: whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.
She had only two pairs of fast-lock missiles left, but her pulse cannon was still almost at full power. It would be difficult to aim from within the altered energy shield, but if she—
The Defender’s weapons suddenly powered down. Kyoto was not surprised when a second later Memory’s voice came over the comlink.
“There’s no needs for weapons, Mei. The Prana have rescued us and are now escort
ing our ships to the Daimonion. You might as well dock with the Janus and enjoy the rest of the ride over here with us.”
Kyoto considered her options and decided that she really didn’t have any. “All right, Memory. Initiating docking sequence.”
As Kyoto began the process of returning to the Janus, she thought of an Old Earth saying: Out of the frying pan…
“A cluster of Stingrays is forming on our port side, General,” the sensor officer said. “I’m not sure, but it looks like they’re somehow pooling their energies.”
“On screen,” Adams ordered. The bridge’s holoscreen displayed an image of ten or more Stingrays huddled close together. As he watched, an aura of crimson energy flared to life around them and quickly began to grow.
“They’re going to attempt a group strike, Lieutenant.” Adams was well aware of the sensor data, thanks to his oculator, but over the years, he’d found it useful not to let on as to how much data he could access with it. As his grandmother used to tell him when he was a boy, “You don’t have to tell all you know.” It was some of the best advice he’d ever gotten. “It’ll take a minute before they’ve built up enough critical mass to attack.” He turned to the weapons officer. “Lock pulse array on the Stingrays and fire at will.”
“Aye, General!”
A dozen bolts of blue-white energy shot from the Kipling’s pulse cannons and streaked toward the clustered Stingrays. The pulse energy destabilized the power matrix the Stingrays were building, and their crimson energy raged out of control, tearing the Buggers apart.
“We got ‘em, General!” the sensor officer shouted.
“Thanks, Lieutentant, but even with only one eye, I can see that for myself.” In fact, thanks to his oculator, he could “see” much more. He knew the exact positions of the Kipling, the Eye of Dardanus, and every surviving Manti. He knew that the two starships had fragged seventy-eight of the Buggers between them (Kipling, 27; Dardanus 51), and that new Manti were continuing to emerge from the hyperspatial rift at a rate of one every three seconds.
Adams also knew that the Kipling’s shields were down to 42 percent of maximum power, and that four of the Battleship’s eight weapons turrets had been either damaged or destroyed. He didn’t know how much damage the Dardanus had taken, but sensor readings revealed that the Residuum ship’s energy emissions were only slightly lower than they were before the Manti attack, so Adams assumed Kryllian and his crew were in good shape.
The general wished he had Memory, though, or at least a reasonable facsimile. Knowing all the data was one thing, but being able to instantly analyze and use it to coordinate an attack between two starships was beyond his capabilities. Beyond any human’s, probably, with the possible exception of Mudo.
A mixed squadron of Yellow Jackets and Reapers dove straight toward the Dardanus, showing no signs of slowing or veering off. Adams realized the damn Buggers were making a suicide run. He’d seen it before during the Last Swarm: the Manti would allow the destructive energy inside them to build to a critical point, and then they’d ram a target and release all that energy upon impact. The Manti were invariably destroyed, but they managed to cause a hell of a lot of destruction in the process.
Adams started to open a comlink channel to warn Kryllian, but a beam of cerulean energy shot forth from the Dardanus’s bow, though the ship’s smooth dolphin-skin surface was unmarked by any obvious weapons array. The beam engulfed the Manti suicide squad and caused them to prematurely release their stored energy, and the Buggers disappeared in a bright flash.
Adams couldn’t help but smile grimly. He might not like the Residuum aliens much, but he had to admit they knew how to fight. But the GSA had a few tricks of its own.
“Deploy doppelgangers,” Adams ordered. “Widest dispersal pattern.”
“How many, General?” the weapons officer asked.
“All of them, Lieutenant. This isn’t a chess match we’re playing here—this is war. We need to kill as many goddamned Buggers as fast as we can, and then we get busy killing some more. Understood?”
“Yes, General,” the weapons officer said, chastened. “Deploying full complement of doppelgangers.”
The gangers were a recent invention of Mudo’s, one that had never been tested in battle before. Adams hoped the scientist had held a firmer-than-usual—grip on sanity the day he’d designed them.
Adams watched as the holoscreen showed twenty small ferroceramic orbs zipping away from the Kipling, the distance between them growing as they flew. Fourteen Landers immediately took notice, breaking off their attack on the starships to chase the orbs. Better still, four Yellow Jackets, a Stingray, and a Reaper also went after the gangers.
So far, so good, Adams thought. Mudo had created the doppelgangers to mimic the energy signature of human beings, down to the subatomic level. To a Manti’s senses, it would seem that twenty humans had suddenly abandoned the Kipling, and though only Landers could absorb human DNA to create Mutants, all Manti would harvest genetic material when the opportunity presented itself. What the other castes did with it remained a mystery.
Each Manti targeted a separate ganger and flew toward it. As they reached out with their foreclaws to grab hold of what they thought were victims, the gangers detonated their charges and it was bye-bye, Buggers. Twenty of them, anyway.
The bridge’s main comlink chirped.
“General, we’re receiving a signal from the Dardanus,” the comm officer said. “Audio only.”
“Route it through my personal comlink,” Adams ordered. It had to be Kryllian. He wondered what the ill-tempered shrimp wanted.
“Kryllian here. Download the specs for that weapon you just used to my ship’s central computer, right now!”
Adams was shocked by the arrogance of the alien captain. To demand that he share technology with them, and after Kryllian had threatened to destroy the Kipling if it didn’t move away from the Janus’s hyperspatial entry point.
“I don’t know how your species reproduces, Kryllian, but among my people it’s an insult to say, go screw yourself. Consider it said.”
“You don’t understand,” Kryllian said. “We do not possess such a weapon ourselves, but with the nanotechnology available to us, we can rapidly produce hundreds of them—enough to destroy every Manti out there! Normally, our sensors would’ve captured all the data we’d need to manufacture our own version of your weapon, but the interference from all the energy discharges around us kept our sensors from obtaining complete readings. I understand you have little reason to trust us, Adams, and even less reason to like us. But if you want to end this battle now, send me those specs!” A pause. “Please.”
It was the “please” that did it. Adams turned to the weapons officer. “You heard the captain’s request. Begin transmitting the doppelganger specs.”
The weapons officer looked surprised but said, “Aye, General,” and went to work. Seconds later, the information was on its way to Kryllian’s ship.
“Data received,” Kryllian said. “It will take us only a few moments to reproduce these devices of yours, but we’ll need to devote most the Dardanus’s energy to the process. We’ll be able to maintain minimal shielding during that time, but that’s all.”
“Understood,” Adams replied. “We’ll cover you as best we can. Kipling out.” He turned to the navigation officer. “Take us as close to the rift as you can without going in.” He then turned to the weapons officer. “Fire on any Manti that goes near the Dardanus, but make sure to miss those that attack us. I want to lure as many Buggers to the Kipling as possible so we can give Kryllian and his people the time that they need.”
“Even if we take significant damage?” the weapons officer asked.
“What’s wrong, Lieutenant? Afraid of getting a few boo-boos? We’re GSA military. Taking hits for other people is what we do.”
“Yes, General. Sorry, General.”
Privately, Adams couldn’t blame the man for feeling as he did. There was doubt in the officer’s
eyes and skepticism in his voice. How could they trust the Residuum aliens to keep their word? Now that they had the specs to make doppelgangers of their own, they could jump their vessel out of the system and leave the Kipling to deal with the Manti on its own.
Adams smiled at the weapons officer. “Sometimes you just have to go on faith, Lieutenant—especially when you don’t have anything else to go on.”
The officer returned the smile. “Yes, General.”
“We’re here,” the nav officer said. “So close to the rift that if you stuck your nose out an airlock, you could smell it.”
“Good work. All right, people, hold on to something. This could get a little rough.” Adams gripped the arms of his chair and let his people do their jobs while he watched the Dardanus on the holoscreen.
The alien ship was slowly drawing back from the area near the rift, probably to help make the Kipling an even more attractive target for the Manti. Several Yellow Jackets and a couple of Stingrays took runs at the Dardanus as it pulled away, but the Kipling’s weapons officer launched autoseek missiles at them, and the Buggers were destroyed. Meanwhile, the rest of the Manti were gathering around the Kipling, and the holoscreen shifted views to focus on the Buggers.
Several of the lower-caste Manti—Landers and Baiters—made feints toward the Kipling and received mandibles full of pulse energy for their trouble, but the higher-caste Buggers kept their distance, as if they suspected a trap. According to Mudo, individual Manti weren’t intelligent or even self-aware, but when Adams saw them acting like this, he couldn’t help wondering if the scientist was wrong.
“Let’s sweeten the deal,” Adams said. “Reduce shield strength by five percent.”
“But, General, we’re already down to forty-two percent of maximum!” the weapons officer protested. “If we go any lower—”
