The Deftly Paradox

by Matthew D. White

  “Also, is there a way to deactivate the combat locks directly? Disconnect them from the OSIRIS’s core? Or whatever it’s using to control us?” he asked.

  “We can try, but I think that’s less likely. Those systems are all designed to prevent a boarding party from directly damaging our most vital assets. All of those components are tucked away pretty well…” his voice trailed as his mind processed the idea. “But not completely.” He pulled up another map, this one centered on the command bridge. “Good, it hasn’t changed since I left.”

  Warner circled a point at the front of the deck. “The tiles at the front of the bridge are removable for maintainers to access the superstructure. If you want to crawl through a half mile of tubes to get down to the core and unlock it from the inside, you’re welcome to try. I can lead you along.”

  “How about I see what we’ve still got loaded in the transport,” Mercer replied. “If you want to go digging through there first, you’re welcome to blaze the trail. I can’t believe there’s nothing on this ship that can stop this thing.”

  ***

  Light flashed in the back of Leo’s eyes as consciousness crept back to her body. Muffled voices, speaking as if she were submerged under water, found their way to her from no particular direction. She felt nothing and everything at once, numbness interspersed with the sharp stings of inhuman pain slicing through her mind as she awoke.

  She opened her eyes and found herself pinned in a narrow metal channel, which at one time had been the corridor leading to the destroyer’s flight deck. Blood and sweat stung at her face as she attempted to move, but found the space too tight to right herself, the walls and ceiling having crumpled in on the landing and subsequent impact with the leading wall of the landing bay.

  Above her, neither pilot moved, although more lights and figures flashed behind them. Without delay, the figures entered the cabin through the shattered screen and lifted the bodies out and away from the tight space. Leo shallowly sighed in relief as the hands came for her, pulling her free and placing her on the flight ramp.

  One of the attending medical officers pulled her eyelid back and took a reading through a retinal scanner to confirm her identity, copying it down on the blank metallic armor that encased her torso.

  “That’s strange. This one’s a council liaison.”

  “What’s she doing out here?”

  “Don’t know, maybe just ended up in the wrong place. Not in too bad of shape though; all readings are within acceptable bounds. Take her to the clinic and keep an eye on her until she comes around.”

  “Will do. Good luck with the rest.”

  “You’re telling me. The hold is a damned meat grinder.”

  Leo felt her heart sink into her scrambled psyche as she was again lifted up and rested upon a stretcher to be whisked away from the crash site. From the corner of her eye, she looked back in time to see the twisted bulk of the destroyer continue to smolder, surrounded by the first responders who had pulled her free. She blinked and found herself staring at a bright, white light without feeling below her neck.

  “She’s awake,” a voice announced, and the face of a medic appeared in her periphery. “Captain Conner, can you hear me?”

  Taking all the energy she could conjure, Leo slowly nodded in his direction. “What happened?” she mumbled, barely above a whisper.

  “Your destroyer just crashed-landed; don’t worry, we’re working as hard as we can to pull your team through. Bigger problem though is the OSIRIS has taken control of the fleet and is sending it to strike Avalon.”

  The words sounded shaky and melted together as Leo processed the words. She wanted to ask him to repeat the comment but could only manage a hiss of air.

  “Don’t worry, we’ve got you stabilized. Once you come around we’ll a…”

  26

  An hour had passed since the enthusiastic address to the council and Lorde found himself again pacing his empty office, wishing not only for the inspiration of a solution, but for the miracle of an audience who would actually listen to him. There had been no messenger, no follow-ups, no communication neither positive nor derisive. He felt in some way that the problem lay within him, that in one way or another he should have tried harder.

  While he made another turn at the wall, a short blast of static raced through his headset. He stopped as he heard Shafer’s voice.

  “Mr. Lorde, please tell me you made some progress.”

  “I hope so. I spent ten minutes beating them over the head with their indecisive navel gazing. Now waiting for them to deliberate and come to a decision. How about you?”

  “About as good as we could hope for. The colonel over here pulled together the current force breakdown. We’ve got four small deployments that could reach us in time if we launch couriers to recall them now. Want to make one of the runs? I’ve already got Erikson chasing down a Third Fleet detachment.”

  “Absolutely,” Lorde said with a nod to himself. “Better that than sit around here. I’m libel to shoot someone if I don’t get out of here before long.”

  “Good. Get yourself down to the first pad, one closest to the council, next to our supply drop.”

  “I’ll be there. Better get out of here before the crawler gets towed,” Lorde said, releasing the communication receiver and going for the door.

  Outside, a strange sense of calm had fallen across the installation. Beset on all sides by a hanging layer of clouds, it could have signified the onset of a thunderstorm, but odder than that was the lack of human activity. For once, orders were not flowing from the OSIRIS, Lorde realized as he climbed back up into the cab of the crawler, which had received no attention since he had left it.

  Part of him wondered if it would be prudent to revisit the conex to resupply. In the end, he decided against the action as he was still running at forty percent and there was a low (hopefully) chance of another firefight breaking out on this side of the operation. He saw the shuttle waiting on the flight line as he approached and bounded down from his ride the second he rolled into walking range.

  The engines of the ship were at idle, emitting a low rumble as he approached the three crew members on the loading ramp. The pilot stepped forward first. “Mr. Lorde?”

  “That’s me,” he replied without fanfare. “Where are we going?”

  “Excellent, sir. We’re following Fleet instruction to rendezvous with a battle group in the vicinity of Redstone Point.”

  “How long will it take?” Lorde asked, following the rest of the crew inside the ship.

  “Day and a half to get out, another three to get back, figuring on Fleet speed. No adversarial contact anticipated, unless you’re bringing it yourself.”

  “Nope, I wouldn’t dream of it. I got that all out of my system this morning,” he replied, still trying to shake the growing sensation of doom which was building around his mind.

  Travel in deep space was always an experience, Lorde decided. While on the surface, it was a long and tedious ordeal, especially for those without a prescribed duty with the crew, but it gave time for one to think and ponder his existence in a world so vast. The sky outside the miniscule windows of the shuttle was nothing but black, without so much as the fleeting trace of stars or dust.

  Between jumps, the stars and planets became pinpricks of life; tiny beacons to a wayward lifeform home to rest and forget about the infinite expanse that waited above. The sensation was only compounded for Lorde, not only for him being left idle, but because he was unsure of the immediate mission to say nothing of the subsequent actions downstream. He was far from taking the easy road through the war. There was no commanding officer who would welcome his news; the possibility of taking out all of First Fleet, the personnel be damned, was enough to condemn them all to lives as pariahs. No one could have contemplated such a mission but then again, it wasn’t as if the fleet had batted an eye at glassing New Loeria.

  His life had taken yet another turn, bringing him back to the days he’d spent as a commissi
oned officer. Gone were his daily concerns with appearance and protocol, the daft meetings and indecisive leadership. Here on the edge his life took on new meaning. It gave voice to the primal corners of his mind and propelled him to action without forms filed in triplicate. Lorde stared down at his hands, protected beneath the armored suit, stained black from explosive residue, and dented from the occasional deflected bullet. If he survived, he silently wondered if he’d be able to pick up where he had left off. Would he be able to drop the current existence in preference for his old life of security?

  He preferred not to think about it and instead concentrated on the mission. The rising tide of battle yet remained and separated him from all of his potential futures. There was also the chance he’d never live to see any of them at all.

  ***

  “Commander,” Captain Richards’ voice cut through the still air of the clinic and pulled Graves the last inch back to the island of the living. His eyes flashed open and his arms jolted at the sound. His hands were restrained at his sides, although without moving he felt the weight of an oxygen mask clamped to his face.

  “Commander, I owe you an apology,” the captain repeated, as if a great weight had long been pressed against his chest. He sounded weak, old, and strained. “I’m afraid I have doomed us all.”

  Graves’ eyes flashed around the room, catching Captain Richards as he stood by his side. He didn’t reply, but returned Richards’ gaze.

  “The OSIRIS has taken control of the fleet and we are now at its mercy. It is on its way to destroy Avalon.”

  The commander’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Seems like a lot of trouble,” Graves mumbled through the plastic mask, damp air collecting on the inside as he exhaled. “You’d have done it yourself for a pat on the head. The OSIRIS’s will be done, and all that bullshit up until an hour ago you’d have sacrificed half your own command to achieve.”

  Richards’ head hung low. “You were right. You were absolutely right. I cannot apologize enough.”

  “So where is the limit? A hundred million lives are expendable, but a few billion is just too much. Please, don’t keep your philosophical discourse to yourself.” Richards stared downward and didn’t respond so Graves’ continued, “Or is it because the OSIRIS called you out for losing your damned mind and didn’t tell you to let it happen?”

  “You can leave that bit of soul-searching with me; it will receive plenty of attention, I assure you. Right now we will either witness the destruction of Avalon, or we will perish in the attempt. I will do everything in my power to stop this, and I’d rather have your assistance than your antagonism. As soon as you are able, you are welcome on the bridge. We can use you. All of us can use you.” Richards turned and exited the tiny suite, leaving Graves alone with his thoughts.

  Graves wanted to call him back, give the older commanding officer a few more choice words, strangle him with a feeding tube, and throw him from an airlock. Eventually, he relented as the man’s footsteps echoed into the distance. No revenge would change the present, he realized, and any such thoughts or actions would do the lot of them no good. He had to accept that the captain’s fate would come one day. The bigger challenge would apparently be to stop their wayward fleet. His mind began to run through possible scenarios.

  ***

  “Have you been out to any of the planetary defense ranges yet?” Colonel Balor asked Shafer from his jump seat across their shuttle’s cabin. The barren landscape of one of Avalon’s few uninhabited areas slid silently beneath the ship.

  Shafer shook his head. “No. There was never a reason for me to go there. When was the last time the batteries were even fired?”

  “Good point. Last time I remember hearing about the installation was when we had a short-lived rebellion about eighty years ago that got a little too close for comfort. The batteries took out five or so small ships; the range on them was so long that they never had a chance.”

  Baylor shook his head. “I don’t think they were really out for seriously challenging the OSIRIS’s rule as much as they were devoted to making a statement about it. Considering the perilous situation where we find ourselves now, maybe they were the sane ones.”

  “Or maybe OSIRIS let them get that close.”

  “Also a possibility. In any event, the ballistic missile batteries are pretty effective against most types of orbital targets, especially dead ones like wayward asteroids. Last time we had a close encounter with a rock was about a hundred and ten years ago, but since then the neighborhood has been fairly quiet.”

  “How effective are the Fleet’s countermeasures?”

  “Against these? Not very much. The missiles hit a very high speed, and when they target larger ships, they’re intentionally hard to steer so that they’re not drawn off target.” The colonel turned about and stared out the small conformal window behind him. “See for yourself. We’re just about there.”

  Shafer did as the officer suggested. There beyond their ship, stretching out to the horizon and beyond, was a wide, dusty plain crisscrossed with miniscule roads which were nothing more than compacted tire tracks. At both regular and random intervals were positioned small clusters of the silos, mostly five to six per instantiation. Taken together, there must have been hundreds, enough to eliminate a massive orbital force. At once, Shafer was both awestruck and concerned. “OSIRIS must know something we don’t, if it expects this to not be enough to stop it.”

  “Interesting,” the colonel mumbled to himself. “This must be one of its primary targets. If it’s able to subdue the ranges, we’d find ourselves at a marked disadvantage.”

  “Well, let’s start with the weaknesses of the system. Thinking backwards, how would you go about defeating it yourself?”

  Baylor nodded. “If we match the OSIRIS’s presupposition, that everything is expendable, it would almost make sense to use the smaller fleet ships as a screen. If you put forty or so destroyers between the battleships and the surface, they’d be able to take a large portion of the strikes, engage what remains, and still give you a sizeable force left over once the defenses are expended. If we delayed firing, they’d be able to push in close enough to let the battleships fire down through the atmosphere and start removing silos before they even launch. Standard firing order would give it a prioritized target list, so that will need to be randomized.”

  27

  Commander Warner hadn’t been exaggerating, Mercer decided as he methodically advanced down the service passage beneath the primary crew deck. The landing had been only a few square feet, which was barely enough space for him to break down his armor, as its size and bulk was wholly inappropriate for the journey ahead.

  Scarcely above eye-level, the ceiling provided illumination from regularly-spaced can lights, which cast a flat white glow upon the stamped panels to each side, all marked with their contents, as well as the locations of snaking wires for the maintenance crews to expeditiously access. Most of the words, descriptions, and alphanumerical codes gracing them meant little to the lieutenant as he trudged ever farther away from his primary element.

  After pulling off the armored suit, Mercer had retained his sidearm, the radio, and a single explosive charge which Warner had assured him would be enough to disrupt power to the engines and drop them back into real space. The OSIRIS’s instance attached to the ship’s core would be unable to regain control unless they physically allowed it.

  Having seen the defensive systems in operation before, Mercer had no reason to doubt the commander’s assessment. The deeper he shuffled along in the passage, unprotected by layers of sound-absorbing insulation, the droning noise of the ship’s systems grew continually louder. While both were still below his threshold for pain and annoyance, the change was nevertheless noticeable. More concerning was the heat. The air grew thicker the farther he got from the climate-controlled flight deck, and he quickly felt a layer of sweat collect about his neck.

  Once he got deeper into the ship, the corridor widened to each side, giving him enou
gh space to walk straight and upright. Although it was a relief to be making progress, part of Mercer’s mind grew steadily more concerned. For all of its planning and scheming, he privately wondered how deep the OSIRIS had actually calculated their every move. It was becoming steadily clearer that his life had both been prepared and saved for the very moment in which he now found himself.

  The OSIRIS had said it was all a test. With that in mind, Mercer continued to reason that there must be a solution, or else what was the point of the whole exercise? There was a solution to overpowering the ships and regaining control of the fleet. If not that, then there would be enough of a defense at Avalon to stop them. Stop them, that is, if they were willing to fight for their lives. If they succeeded, there was a solution to righting the governmental disaster in which the galaxy now operated.

  That task fell equally to each and every operator of the fleet. Spread across the hundreds of ships throughout their fleets, Mercer wondered how many were chosen by the OSIRIS to play a part in the battle. It was certainly possible that every ship was gifted the personalities to make the difference at an opportune time. Conversely, it was just as possible that their efforts would be in vain and it would be up to Avalon’s defenders to blow them all out of the sky.

  Whatever the situation on the outside, Mercer determined he could plan on none of it. As they were still in hyperspace, the rest of reality was unknowable; in a way he was a party to a private universe. The lieutenant decided not to let the unknowable cloud his judgement; he would act as if the entire effort was on his shoulders alone.

  Mercer keyed the radio. “Commander, I think I’m just about there. The hall is widening out.”

  “Excellent. That’s about halfway to the core. It’ll be a little easier going from there.”

  “Anything I should be worried about?”

  “Back there? Not really. It’s not a jaunt through a rainforest.”

  “I know, but what if the OSIRIS decides to stop me?”