“An elevated heart rate can cause distress. Shall I sedate you?”
“Stick me with a needle right now, and I’ll break your drive, you understand? Back off.”
“I will not sedate you at this time.”
“How kind of you to refrain from being a monster. Have you finished the scan?”
“Still scanning,” said the computer.
Victor closed his eyes and tried to calm down. If only he could talk to Imala. Perhaps she could make sense of it all. She could see things he couldn’t, propose explanations that he hadn’t considered, find meaning where Victor saw none.
Imala. Did she know about his current predicament? Could she see his zipship on some chart? Was she tracking his movements? Did she know that the Fleet had abandoned him? Was she watching her husband fly farther and farther into the Black, knowing that he wouldn’t find anything once he reached his destination?
He hoped not. That would be excruciating.
Of course, not knowing would be excruciating also, as Victor knew all too well. He didn’t know Imala’s location. He knew she was onboard the Gagak, the family’s asteroid mining ship that the IF was now leasing, but where the Gagak had gone remained a mystery. Victor knew only this: The IF had detected something out in deep space that it wanted Imala and Mother and the Gagak’s new crew of IF soldiers to investigate. But where in deep space? Victor had no idea. That intel was classified.
The more troubling mystery was what they were being asked to investigate. Was Imala going toward a Formic outpost? A Formic weapon? The Hive Queen’s ship? And why would the IF choose to keep that a secret?
Because whatever it was would cause a panic, Victor thought. Because the secret the IF had uncovered out in deep space showed how weak and ill-prepared we are. Because the IF didn’t want to squash people’s hopes by revealing something that it knew would dash those hopes in an instant. Because the IF and the Hegemony wanted to preserve the idea that the human race could accomplish anything, that there was no force in the universe that could silence the human spirit. Which was a dangerous falsehood, as Victor knew all too well. He had seen, perhaps more than anyone, that the Formics could destroy far more than our belief in ourselves.
“Scanning complete,” said the computer.
“And?” said Victor. “Are we in the right place?”
“Our coordinates and flight schedule are correct.”
Victor wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or disappointed. “If your nav system is broken, though, we might be off, and you would only think we’re right.”
“Navigation is fully operational.”
“Fine. All I can do is take your word for it. So we’re in the right place, moving in the right direction, toward the right destination. And the Fleet?”
“I cannot detect any Fleet ships nearby.”
Victor swore under his breath.
“I’m sorry,” said the computer. “I didn’t catch that. Could you repeat your instructions?”
“It wasn’t instructions. Again, you’ve got nothing in the scans? Zero? No ships. Nada.”
“I can detect the Formic motherships,” said the computer. “They’re still holding a position high above us.”
“That does little to put my mind at ease.”
And yet … if the motherships were still there …
“You say you can detect the motherships?” said Victor.
“I assume the objects in the scans are the motherships,” said the computer. “They are still at too great a distance for the scans to identify definitively. But something is out there.”
“So what does the computer show you? A blob in space? A mass of something too far away to make out clearly?”
“I detect a large mass. Or perhaps several large masses clustered together. Far more powerful scopes from the Fleet have previously identified this mass as the motherships. But my scopes can only detect a mass.”
“Could the Fleet already be there?” Victor asked. “At the motherships, I mean. Is it possible that the ships of the Fleet were ahead of schedule and already passed by and are positioned up near the mass? If that were the case, would you know it? Or would the ships of the Fleet just be part of the blobby mass?”
“I cannot detect individual ships from this distance. After a certain distance, only large celestial objects appear in my scans.”
Victor knew that was true from his work tracking asteroids throughout the flight. The computer could see the asteroids down in the ecliptic, but the warships down there never appeared in the scans. The ships were too small; the distance too great.
“But it’s possible,” said Victor. “It’s conceivable that the ships of the Fleet are already there, up at the motherships, correct?”
“It’s possible.”
“On the other hand, it’s just as possible that the ships are way behind schedule and haven’t reached us yet.”
“Also possible.”
“How far away would they need to be to be out of range of your scans?”
“Impossible to know. If I can see them, I see them. If I don’t, I don’t.”
Whatever the distance was, Victor knew, it had to be great. Which meant, in either case, whether the Fleet was ahead of schedule or behind it, if they existed they were extremely far away.
“How much longer can I last with my current oxygen supply?” Victor asked.
“That depends on how much you use.”
“Assuming I’m not moving. Assuming I’m asleep.”
“These calculations are mere speculations and imprecise.”
“How many days?”
“Perhaps twenty-four.”
Victor winced. Twenty-four. So few.
“What about food?” he asked. “Assuming I’m given nutrients intravenously?”
“Thirty-two days.”
“So I’ll run out of oxygen before I run out of food. Okay. We’ve got twenty-four days. We need a Fleet ship that may or may not exist to take us in within the next three weeks, give or take a few days, or we’re dead. What about fuel?”
The computer gave him the amounts still in storage.
“I know how much we have,” said Victor. “I need to know what that means in terms of maneuvers, in terms of how fast we can go and how quickly we can change course. Do we, for example, have enough to change course now and get on the flight path of the Vandalorum? Technically that flight path is four days directly in front of us, but I want to divert now and get on the path elsewhere and head directly toward it. My hope is that they’ll see us coming, catch us, and bring us in.”
“What direction do you want to divert?” asked the computer.
“That’s the question. Should we assume the Fleet is above us and go up, or assume the Fleet is behind schedule, and go down?”
“I’m sorry. I do not know the answer.”
“It’s rhetorical,” said Victor. “Thinking out loud here. But you can answer me this: If we did divert and go upward, how long would it take us to reach the Formic motherships?”
“Roughly sixty-four days.”
“So if the Fleet is already at the motherships then I’m dead already because I won’t last that long. I don’t have enough life support to get there. But if they’re above us and heading toward the motherships, I could potentially catch up to them. Assuming I could reach a speed so far above their own that I could close the distance within twenty-four days. No, scratch that. I have to do it faster than twenty-four days, because I’ll need time to decelerate and match their speed so that they can grab me. Which means I would need to take that into consideration with my fuel supply. I need to save enough for the intercept. Otherwise, I would blow right by them, and my corpse would rocket into the Formic motherships like a kamikaze pilot in a spectacular but unappreciated show of fireworks. But, since I don’t know if they are in fact ahead of us, I can’t calculate what my speed needs to be to reach them. I’d be guessing. So I’d punch it, pray I guessed right, and hope I’m even going in the right direction.
And pray I don’t run out of fuel before I reach them. Or oxygen. Which is a lot of guessing and praying and risk-taking. I’m not liking those odds.
“But if they’re below us, it won’t matter what speed I choose if I go upward because I’ll be rocketing in the wrong direction anyway and getting farther from rescue. In which case, another instance of corpse kamikaze fireworks. So going upward is a gamble on top of a gamble.
“If I go downward, I also need to guess at my velocity because I have no idea how fast they’re coming. And since we’re going in opposite directions, our velocities are compounded, and the chance of me rocketing past them is incredibly high. Even if I’m at a dead stop when I reach them, which is impossible in space, but never mind that for a moment, even if I’m at a dead stop and the Vandalorum is coming upward, the intercept would be a catastrophic disaster. That much kinetic energy would rip the zipship to shreds. Probably the Vandalorum as well. So if I go down, my only option would be to punch it, race downward, then decelerate, then change direction and start going upward again, matching the speed of the Vandalorum all at the right time and place so the Vandalorum could make the intercept without ripping us all into itty bitty pieces. But again, since I don’t know where the Vandalorum is or how fast it’s moving, I’m doing a lot of guesswork and flying maneuvers so complex I deserve to be an IF fighter pilot. Which I’m not. And for good reason. So going down is a gamble, on top of a gamble, on top of a gamble, wrapped in a miracle.
“Then there’s option C. I curve upward into the flight path, but with the assumption that the Vandalorum is below us and coming. And then, when we see her coming, I accelerate just enough to match her speed and conduct the intercept. But, for that to work, the Vandalorum has to be close. It can’t be too far behind schedule. It has to be just outside the range of your scans and yet moving fast enough to catch us within the next three weeks. Which is a lot of factors that may not align with reality. Going downward now may be my only chance of reaching the Vandalorum before my oxygen depletes. Three options, all of them stupid. All of them awful.”
There was of course an option D, but Victor didn’t want to give it voice. He could simply arc upward toward the Formic ship and turn himself into a missile, accelerate as fast as he could, so much so that he’d pass out and die in moments, and then crash into a Formic mothership at so great a velocity that he’d hopefully do massive damage. Of course, if the mothership was covered in hullmat, he wouldn’t do any damage, no matter how fast he was going. He’d simply disintegrate.
Option C was the only option that seemed like a maneuver the zipship could feasibly conduct. And Victor figured that it was more likely that the Fleet was behind schedule than ahead of it. This was the military. The assault included dozens of ships. That would take coordination, logistics. Delays and problems were almost a foregone conclusion. And since the Formic motherships were still in space where they were positioned at the start of this mission, Victor had to assume that the mission was still a go.
“They’re below us,” he said. “And they’re coming. We’re going to divert and do option C and pray that they reach us within the next twenty-four days. But I need your help calculating our speed and position to determine if this is even possible. If we start off too fast, they may never catch us. So I’d rather err on the side of slow and then punch it when we can actually see them and can accurately determine the intercept.”
They ran the numbers and made a lot of guesses, and when they finished, Victor was even more disheartened than before. The likelihood of the Vandalorum reaching them within twenty-four days was remote, even if it was moving at an exceptionally high velocity and was closer than their best-case distance estimates predicted.
He hesitated then. Should he try one of the other maneuvers? If he chose wrong now, it was over.
He dressed back into his flight suit and helmet and ordered the goo back into the cockpit. As it oozed in around him, he dictated a message to Imala. In all likelihood, she would never receive it. But there was a small chance that someone in the Fleet would eventually grab the zipship and download its database.
When the flight goo was ready, Victor finished the message.
“As soon as I’m under, punch it,” he said. “The instant you detect the Vandalorum, wake me up again. If it doesn’t come, just let me sleep.”
“Understood,” said the computer.
Then Victor gave the order and slipped into unconsciousness as the sleep meds took him.
CHAPTER 5
GravCamp
Encrypted laserline transmission from VGAS (GravCamp) to Selenop #87F3
* * *
Mazer, Bingwen, and Nak,
Whatever you saw and experienced and recovered at the Kandahar is classified, designation: top secret. You are not to speak of your experience or of any data recovered from the site with anyone but me. This includes Colonel Dietrich, who does not have the necessary clearance to discuss or view classified materials. All materials recovered from the site are to be delivered to me immediately upon arrival in a sealed container that does not reveal its contents.
Please note, the mishandling of classified material or the divulging of classified information to those unauthorized to receive it is unlawful, will result in court-martial, and carries severe penalties. As in decades of prison.
Glad you’re not dead.
Li
* * *
Bingwen finished reading the laserline aloud, then turned to Mazer and Nak, who had joined him in the selenop’s small cockpit to prepare for their arrival at GravCamp. “You still think Li is nothing but a school superintendent?” said Bingwen.
“He’s definitely in intelligence,” said Nak. “Question is, who’s he working for? The Hegemony or the Fleet?”
Bingwen said, “I find it ironic that he’s warning us to keep our mouths shut when we don’t know anything anyway.”
The data cube from the recon drone and the wrist pad from the Frenchman were both encrypted and required passwords. Despite Bingwen’s persistent efforts to crack them on the long flight to GravCamp, the data had remained unopened.
“We may be better off not knowing what’s on that cube,” said Mazer. “If Li and Dietrich have locked horns in a power struggle, as the laserline seems to suggest, the last place we want to be is in the middle of that fight. I’d much rather know nothing and truthfully say so than know everything and have to lie repeatedly to conceal the fact. Lying to a superior officer never ends well.”
“Aren’t you curious, though?” said Bingwen. “An asteroid disappeared. We know that much. That’s what the Kandahar’s mission was from the get-go. Find out why an asteroid disappeared. The obvious explanation is that it disappeared because the Formics blew it apart to release the warship they had built inside it. But that happens all the time. Clearly the IF thought there was more to the story or they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of sending the Kandahar and a recon drone. And now this intel is classified. Which means one of two things. Either the Fleet knows that the asteroid didn’t blow up and that it disappeared for an entirely different reason, and they suspect that the data cube confirms it. Or, they still don’t know why the asteroid disappeared, but they’re fairly confident that the Formics didn’t blow it up. Bottom line, they expect to find strange data on the cube that they don’t want widely known.”
“Will you listen to yourself,” said Nak. “You sound like a crazed conspiracy theorist. The more you speculate, the more trouble you’re going to get yourself into. We don’t know anything. We won’t know anything. End of story.”
“No, not end of story,” said Bingwen. “An asteroid disappeared. Big giant rocks in space don’t up and vanish. The Fleet knows something, and they’re terrified of what will happen when everyone else knows.”
“I respect your zealous pursuit of truth, Bingwen,” said Mazer. “I applaud you. But I have to side with Nak on this one. Our involvement with the data is over. If we can pump Colonel Li for intelligence, we will, but I’m
not holding my breath. Right now the only information I care about is what’s going on with the war. We’ve been off the grid for nearly four months. I don’t have a clue what’s going on. Are we winning, losing? Do we still have a fleet? That’s my priority at the moment. So let’s strap in, relax, and prepare to finally get off this damn boat.”
They buckled into their flight seats for the dock with GravCamp. Mazer projected the exterior camera feeds onto the interior wall in front of them, which made it appear as if the hull of the ship were glass and they were looking directly outside as GravCamp drew nearer. The space station had once served as a massive depot in the asteroid-mining trade, serving families, clans, and corporates brave enough to venture out to the Kuiper Belt with its billions of unmined rocks. But at the start of the Second Invasion, the IF commandeered the depot and tripled its size, turning it into the largest zero G combat training facility this side of Mars.
They were cleared to dock, and Mazer piloted them to the designated docking port. Fifteen minutes later they were drifting up the docking tube from the selenop and into the airlock where Colonel Li was waiting. A second man in a colonel’s uniform with a shaved head and an austere expression was anchored to the floor beside Li, hands clasped behind his back, brow furrowed.
Bingwen saw at once that Mazer’s supposition of a war between the colonels was accurate. Li wouldn’t want Dietrich present for the data cube delivery, and yet Colonel Dietrich was here all the same.
Bingwen anchored himself in front of Colonel Li, snapped to attention, and saluted. Nak beside him did the same. First acknowledge your CO. Let him direct the introductions.
“Colonel Dietrich, I present to you two of my students, Bingwen and Nak. And this here is Captain Mazer Rackham, formerly of the New Zealand Special Air Service and a test pilot at WAMRED.”
Dietrich said nothing.
In his peripheral vision, Bingwen could see Mazer salute both colonels.
The Hive Page 7
