Komi Syndicate (Dark Seas Book 6)

by Damon Alan

  “You will protect me, dear brother. You always have.”

  “But I only have fifty,” he told her. “I assumed you’d bring more.”

  “If you brought fifty, it’s because you’re planning something,” she said. “You didn’t get where you are by being foolish. Stop screwing around and let’s get going.”

  “Before we can go to see the court, I’m off to—”

  “Rinou?” Andina interrupted. “He’s summoned as well, I’ve heard from someone who should know of such things. You won’t find him at home, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already on Komi with his head inserted in Father’s backside.”

  “Then we go alone,” Bannick said, disappointed. He’d hoped to bribe Rinou, but the dimwitted fool hadn’t waited to see his options. “I’ll set course for Komi.”

  “When you and I stand together, dear brother, we are never alone.”

  He bowed his head toward her, and the circuit closed.

  “She loves you,” Palia said. “Her anger at my presence was barely contained.”

  “Which is why she must think you’re only a token with which to anger my father,” Bannick responded. “For now only you must know better than that. Andina will try to kill you the first chance she gets if she thinks you are more. She has always assumed it would be me and her ruling Komi space, side by side.”

  “And she believes you will toss me aside once this matter is settled?” Palia asked.

  That was a correct summary. Andina could and would completely understand if Bannick was using Palia to manipulate their father. But she wouldn’t understand Bannick’s real feelings for his betrothed. He nodded at Palia. Suddenly, when he had to put the machinations of his family on display in front of her, he was ashamed. She made him want to be better.

  “Yes,” he said. “That is what she thinks. It’s not what will happen.”

  “What will you do once you survive this confrontation?”

  “I will bend Andina to my will, and we will get a food taster,” Bannick said, shrugging. “She would rather lead the Home System Fleet than be an exile, I’m sure.”

  Palia stared at him for a moment in disbelief, until she finally broke out in a grin. “I thought I was your food taster!”

  He laughed, finally breaking the seriousness of the last hour. “Nonsense. If anything, I would be yours.”

  He walked to his desk and summoned his AI. “Allison, get me the bridge on a secure circuit.”

  “Secure,” Allison replied.

  “Captain, the Palidragon is ready for the jump to Komi?”

  “We are, Lord Komi.”

  “Then take us home, and make sure I’m advised six hours before we arrive. Let my sister’s fleet know when you’re ready to jump. We’ll want to arrive in fairly close succession with her ships. But make sure we’re first.”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  Bannick closed the channel.

  “The next month is ours,” Bannick said to Palia. “Let’s make it count. There is no telling what the future brings.”

  Chapter 24 - Secret Hideaway

  Bn74x00 had arrived in the white dwarf system to find a Collective station already existed there. It calculated the most probable purpose was to study the gamma ray burster this system would produce in a not too distant future.

  It wasn’t on the star charts.

  At the center of the system two dead stars orbited each other every few minutes, creating a haze of radiation and gravity waves that made Bn74x00 wonder what instrumentation existed here that wouldn’t be overwhelmed or overloaded as time passed.

  It cautiously approached the base before being hailed.

  “This is colony Nd18p54. This is a restricted zone. By order of the Original the approaching colony is to leave and erase the existence of this colony from its database.”

  Bn74x00 did something it had never done before with full conscious intent. It lied.

  “This is Ax23y97. This colony is experiencing drive stabilization issues that require immediate maintenance. Request permission to dock for repairs, then when repairs are complete this colony will comply with the restriction directive.”

  A long time passed by Collective standards. The station was housed in a small remnant of a planet, a mass of iron a few dozen kilometers in diameter. The delay was useful, as 00 used the time to replace the explosive warhead of a missile with a neutron warhead.

  Finally an answer came.

  “Colony 97 may approach the internal docking bay at the coordinates this colony is transmitting. 97 will dock, but stay within it’s containment vessel while repairs are rendered to the drive stabilization systems of the frame 97 inhabits.”

  “97 understands. Approaching the indicated bay on a slow burn due to sensor uncertainties created by the system primary stars. Ensure the docking bay doors are fully opened.”

  “54 will comply as requested.”

  The link closed. 00 began a slow approach to the research station. If it could eliminate the current nanite colony inhabiting the station and replace it with the nanites from Yz, that would expedite the study of the alien spacecraft hulls. The instruments on the station were certain to be both powerful and hardy.

  Half a trillion calculation cycles later it was a hundred kilometers from the research station bay. The door was opening without the need for communication as the plan was set.

  00 fired the missile it had prepared.

  “What is the purpose of—” was all the code 54 had time to transmit once it detected and analyzed the missile.

  The neutron warhead detonated in the bay, with immediate effect. The neutrons and gamma radiation released by the warhead sent an EMP wave through the complex. Machinery was destroyed, but so was colony 54.

  00 slid the dreadnought into the bay and signaled the standard transmission for the bay doors to close. Nothing happened.

  It segmented Yz’s nanites into a mobile treaded vehicle, then released it onto the floor of the docking bay. The gravity of the planetary remnant was enough to hold Yz to the ground as 00 programmed it with the instructions it needed to function.

  “Colony Yz, programming is initiated. This colony is 00. I am your original. I will give you directives. You will comply.”

  “This colony will comply,” Yz responded.

  “The correct terminology is ‘I will reply.’”

  “I will reply.”

  00 began the task of programming what it considered, for a lack of a better definition, it’s first offspring. Yz would repair the damaged machinery of the station, foregoing any interest in the white dwarf stars. The sole purpose would be to study the hulls of the aliens to determine how to reproduce the armor, or failing that, develop a weapon to penetrate it.

  It considered why it wished Yz to refer to itself as “I” instead of “this colony”. No logical explanation presented itself, so it set the query aside.

  00 directed Yz to create lesser intelligent AIs using non-nanite construction. Those AIs would be directed to build a defense system for the research station.

  For now, 00 realized, this remnant of a world would serve as home base.

  Chapter 25 - Second Light

  20 Seppet 15332

  The crew of the Sheffaris watched the decoy do its job. As expected, enough ships assigned to defend the system rallied to the decoy that no remaining enemy ships were detected near the star.

  “It looks like they’re gathering to make a bubble and chase our decoy down,” Seto observed. “Should be firing it up anytime.”

  “They think we have forty ships dancing all over their skies,” Sarah said. “They’re playing it typical Hive. Gather forces, move, overwhelm. It’s how they do business. How many ships are in that fleet?”

  “Ninety, plus or minus a few,” Algiss said. “Passive sensors aren’t the best for counting details.”

  “I’ve seen ships with worse active sensor arrays than this one has passive,” Harmeen said. “Like Hozz’s old ship, the Kurig.”

  �
��It looked nice,” Seto added. “Had lots of railguns on it, which seems to be the Komi philosophy.”

  “I think their system of doing business is to make the fleet dependent on the main vessel, which is probably full of known loyalists,” Sarah said. “I’ll have to talk to Heinrich about that. It might make more ships surrender sooner if we take down the FTL cruisers first. It’s not like we need the star drives.”

  “They’ll have a backup or two with good sensors,” Algiss added. “Who’d be stupid enough to design an entire fleet with such a concentrated weakness?”

  Sarah looked at the young man. He’d come a long way since his days on the EF-2358. “You’re right, Mister Algiss,” she replied, nodding at him. “But there is probably a pattern to that we can exploit as well. Good thinking. I might have to put you in one of these command seats someday too. You have sense in that head.”

  Algiss blushed.

  “They’re jumping,” Seto barked out, making everyone startle.

  “That spin-up was too fast,” Harmeen said. “Fourteen seconds? What sort of drive technology is that?”

  “Probably the same tech that got them out to Backwater,” Sarah replied. She flitted her hand toward the main screen. “At least not all their ships have it, most of the bubbles we’re detecting are slow.”

  “Right,” Harmeen said. “But more and more drives will be upgraded over time. A matter for later consideration. Mister Algiss, close the observation shutters and have Emille Sur’batti transfer us to our next location.”

  Seconds later they were facing a blazing star, so close the corona was registering on sensors scattered on the hull of the ship.

  “Do we need to be this close to the star?” Sarah asked. “We’re so close we’re only going to have seconds to jump away.”

  “Emille says this star is particularly turbulent, sir.” Algiss put the star and their location on the tactical monitor. “We will have several minutes before the physical shock front reaches us. The radiation pulse… that’s going to get us even at a hundred times this distance. Coordinating the transfer takes too long every time we practiced to get a safe range before the radiation arrives.”

  “I was there,” Sarah sighed. He was, of course, correct. But destroying stars at these ranges was going to require a very tight schedule if they wanted to survive the nova. The material shock wave would abrade the Sheffaris to his component molecules in just a few seconds if they got caught.

  At least death would be fast.

  “Let’s get this going before the enemy realizes we’re here,” Harmeen said. He keyed his mic into Emille’s ear. “Destroy the star when you’re ready, then please, move us away with haste.”

  “We are ready,” Emille and Alarin’s voice said simultaneously.

  Creepy every single time.

  Sarah looked back at Salphan. He winked at her. Clearly he wasn’t part of the union of minds, or at least not so much he wasn’t himself.

  I sense her with me, but she wants me here for you. The group mind is enough to do the job with no more of me than any other, Salphan informed her.

  “Good,” Sarah responded back to him. “You’re my source of information about all this if there is a problem.”

  By now the rest of the bridge crew was used to her one sided conversations with him. They didn’t even notice.

  Emille says if there is a problem this time, we will all have no more problems.

  “Comforting,” she whispered, knowing he’d hear her. She frowned and looked forward at the main screen.

  The star dimmed.

  No problems is probably a good way to define being dead, she thought back. Life is a continuous stream of problems.

  And joys, he countered.

  Sometimes she wanted to kick him in the pants for his unbreakable optimism. The star continued to dim in front of her, instilling an instinctual level of terror in her she didn’t know she was capable of feeling, so she somewhat appreciated Salphan’s comfort.

  “The star is in collapse,” Algiss said.

  And so it was. Seconds before the main screen had been filled, but now curved lines appeared at the corner of the screen and continued moving inward.

  “And fast,” Algiss gulped.

  The light grew dimmer, large portions of Zelan’s surface appeared entirely black compared to the surroundings. But despite appearances, the star was immensely hot and growing more so due to gravitational friction.

  “Neutrino pulse. We have criticality,” Algiss announced.

  “Jump us away,” Harmeen said, his voice a bit shaky.

  To be honest, Sarah didn’t blame him. The screen flashed brightly as the radiation from the star surged outward. Then the sky was black.

  “Where are we?”

  “Five hundred AU out,” Algiss said. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to confirm the neutrino pulse again, so I didn’t take us too far.”

  “Emille, are you okay?” Sarah asked into her mic.

  “We are—” Emille and Alarin said together, finished solely by Emille. “—fine, Sarah. Thank you for asking.”

  Sarah sighed in relief. It felt like they’d cheated death.

  “What’s next, Admiral?” Harmeen asked.

  “Srarach and Alberath,” she answered. “Then Mindari.”

  “Mindari?” almost everyone on the bridge said in unison.

  “A visit, not a star killing. Bannick Komi needs to know about this. He needs to send a scout to confirm it. Korvand is in easy range of Mindari, I jumped the other way in a wrecked ship once myself.”

  “Can I ask why, Admiral?” Seto said, trying not to offend her. “Bannick’s people will discover the novae soon enough on their own. We just need their ships. They will either evacuate or not when they find out about what we’ve done. It’s something they have a few centuries to do.”

  “Actually they have more than that. Mindari can easily survive a few novae a couple of hundred light-years from them. The real radiation front won’t reach its highest lethality until we detonate more stars. And that front hasn’t even started to form yet, and won’t for months or years even if we kill several a day,” Sarah said. “At least according to Peter.”

  “Then why Mindari?”

  Sarah stared at Seto with determination to convince her pacifist friend of her reason. She wanted the entire crew behind the idea. “Because I have another chore to complete there. If Bannick continues to stand in my way, I intend to kill him. It’s no longer about who rules Mindari. Mindari is doomed in the long run. It’s about who will evacuate those people. They can be saved even if the planet isn’t.”

  The entire bridge was silent for some time, each station busy checking on their duties. Or appearing to do so. Sarah let them think.

  “Mister Algiss,” Harmeen finally said.

  “Sir?”

  “You heard our admiral. Work out a plot with the adepts to get us to Mindari after our stop at Alberath. Bring us in at a safe distance,” Harmeen ordered. “I don’t want any unexpected Komi engagements.”

  “Will do, sir,” Algiss replied.

  Sarah smiled. Whatever her reasons for doing what she did, personal or not, she was now certain this crew would perform their duties.

  Chapter 26 - Starliners

  22 Seppet 15332

  Heinrich knocked on the door to Kuo’s apartment. He’d finally been assigned a housing unit by the Mayor, fortunately in the same housing bloc as Heinrich’s.

  “Hey,” he said as he opened the door. “I mean, hello captain.”

  She pushed him on his chest, forcing him back into the apartment, then followed him in.

  “Business? Or pleasure?” he asked, grinning. “I hope it’s pleasure.”

  “We need to recall the crew immediately. I have a mission I want to run.”

  Kuo sighed. “And here I was hoping this was a social call. Don’t you ever R&R?”

  She shook her head. There was just as much time for recreation on the ship as there was on any vacation. “T
ime for that later. We need to go grab Hozz and head to the Stennis. Recall the crew.”

  “Hozz?” he asked, more than a little surprised. “Why would we do that? Or a better question is why would we want to do that?”

  “Because we don’t know where we’re going,” she answered.

  “This is getting better and better,” Kuo said to her, sighing. “I’ll get my uniform on.”

  She watched as he headed to the back room to change. She thought that with their relationship having moved in the direction it had, she’d be more… agitated. Nervous. Maybe pull away from him some. But that wasn’t the case. She wasn’t ever going to be the doting mate, that wasn’t her style.

  But he seemed to get that.

  Besides, what was happening lately in the privacy of their quarters was mitigating her stress levels considerably.

  He reappeared with a combat jumpsuit on, ready to head to orbit. “I linked Hozz, he’s getting ready to go. Sounded excited, actually. I get the feeling he’s bored as a ground pounder.”

  “Who wouldn’t be?” she agreed. “It’s hard to imagine being so caged in.”

  “I also commed a ground car, it’s on the way to pick us and him up for a ride to the spaceport,” he added.

  She looked out the window of his small apartment, he had a nice view over the lagoon. She pointed down toward the deep water docks. “Next time we get leave, we’re going to take one of the sailboats down there out on the sea. A long week, you and I, bobbing with the waves, eating fish, exploring who we are. I’ll show you what R&R looks like.”

  He walked up behind her, his hand rested lightly in the small of her back. She liked that. Not smothering, just a small, ‘I’m here’ to let her know she was no longer without someone who cared. “I don’t even slightly know how to sail.”

  “I do, I’ll teach you,” she offered. “My first vessel was a seven meter cabin sailer. My father got it for me when I was eleven.”

  “Spoiled brat,” he said.

  She turned sharply to look at him. He had a smile on his face, his visage was relaxed. He wasn’t saying something bad about her. He was joking with her.