by Alex Lamb
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Just not very well, that’s all. But our fake ship doesn’t have to go far. It just needs to get their attention.’
Mark grimaced. ‘It’s a start, I guess, but that’d take out, what, two or three drones before they nailed it?’
‘So we put a disrupter on it,’ said Zoe. ‘That’s how they used to disable drones during the war. You simulate the ionic crap that blocks warp near stars – make it so they can’t sustain a stable pattern of curvon decay. All we’d need is a cold plasma to trash their inducers. Then any drone that goes near our lure gets stuck.’
‘Shame we don’t have one of those, either,’ Venetia put in.
‘Are you kidding?’ said Zoe. ‘We’re sitting on one. All we have to do is mine the lighter metals right out of the asteroid we’re tethered to, then use our own engines to ionise them. Or we jack extra juice through an X-ray bounce probe. This ship has one of those.’
Mark laughed aloud. He’d never heard of anyone jerry-rigging a disrupter before. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t be done.
‘We have mining equipment?’ said Venetia.
‘All ships do,’ said Mark. ‘Ore-extraction tools are part of the standard deep-space self-repair kit. We’d have to hollow-mine, of course, otherwise they’d spot us – drill right under the hull join and buffer the tailings.’
Venetia threw up her hands. ‘Okay, you have everything you need. But there’s still the problem of how to divert attention from the Gulliver. Whatever we can build isn’t going to look remotely like us …’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘But I may have a solution for that. After we’ve mined the asteroid, we blow it up and eject the lure at the same time. The drones head for the lure. We drift with the debris and try to look as much like a rock as possible. Can we blow it up? If you can fake a starship, you can rig a fuel bomb, I presume?’
‘Easily,’ said Mark. ‘You know, I’m starting to think we might have a chance of getting out of here. Presuming they fall for it, of course.’
‘If they don’t, we’re dead in any case,’ said Venetia. ‘It has to be worth a shot.’
Ash stepped into the bridge then, his face a mask of fury. Sam strode in right behind him. It looked to Mark very much like the two of them had just had some kind of fight. Something about Citra’s attempt to kill him, perhaps, or whether to try to remove him from the captain’s seat again. He didn’t have time for it. They had a ship to save.
‘Ash,’ he said, before his subcaptain could get a word in, ‘I need help. I’m going to be running a whole team of construction robots and I need support.’ He sent an outline of the plan via memory packet straight to Ash’s sensorium. ‘Do you think you could cover some of our subsystems?’
Ash blinked in astonishment. His expression caved in. ‘Are you serious?’ he said. He looked about to cry.
Mark frowned in confusion. He hadn’t expected such an emotional response.
‘I know it’s risky,’ he said, ‘but it’s all we’ve got. Can you help?’
‘Of course,’ said Ash. He looked oddly defeated. ‘I’ll cover albedo control, make us look like the debris – I have some ideas about camouflage.’
‘Great,’ said Mark. ‘It’s all yours.’
It’d be good to have Ash mucking in and sharing ownership of the ship. A little camaraderie over the next half-hour might make the difference between life and death. He passed Ash control over the hull integument.
‘I can help, too,’ said Sam. ‘Send me a plan outline.’
Mark passed one to his view. Sam nodded judiciously, his expression carefully neutral.
‘This could work,’ he said. ‘It’s a long shot, of course, but better than nothing. I have one recommendation, though.’
‘Which is?’
‘Put a bomb on that decoy. Once you trap those drones, you take them out. We could overload the antimatter containment using fuel from our own supply.’
Mark’s spirits lifted a little further. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘That makes perfect sense.’
‘I’ll work on the decoy design with Zoe,’ said Sam. ‘I have experience in that area. Given the right material, we’ll have a piece of junk passing for a starship in no time. I may need to cannibalise from our kit, though.’
‘No problem,’ said Mark with a grin. ‘Whatever you need, you’ve got it.’
They had a few scant hours to ready their escape, but the threat appeared to have brought them together at last, just when their mutual trust had looked ready to break. If they lived, maybe he’d be able to salvage something from this mess of a mission after all.
10.5: ANN
Ann waited for Will in the Chiyome’s privacy chamber and practised zero-yoga to keep a tight rein on her nerves. The room had been prepared for him in advance, using the package of biotech deterrent Meleta had provided. For all that she feared the alien coating they’d spread on the walls, Ann dreaded facing Will more.
The hatch opened to reveal Will’s long, expressive face, which wore a curiously empty expression more distressing to her than sadness or anger could have been. He drifted up to meet her. He looked haggard but taut, like a man made of old wire.
‘Welcome to the Chiyome,’ she said. She put her hands behind her back and gripped them tightly together. ‘You will remain in our custody and be treated as an honoured guest until you’ve been properly briefed. At that point, you will be at liberty to make independent choices. We will manage the repair of your ship on your behalf.’
Will stared at her. She felt as if he was looking through her eyes at something deep inside her – something unsatisfactory. Shame roiled in Ann’s gut, taking on a physical intensity that hurt like a stab wound.
‘I’m disappointed,’ he said quietly.
Though he sounded exhausted, something about his hands suggested that they itched to kill. Half of Will Monet’s psych reports suggested he’d never properly recovered from the atrocities he’d endured during the war.
‘You’re an officer of the IPSO Fleet,’ he added. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
She swallowed back her regret, cleared her throat and tried for a level, commanding tone. ‘You are no doubt appalled by what we’ve done,’ she said. ‘Nevertheless, you’re not in possession of all of the facts. Our actions were motivated by a single goal: that of averting wholesale war. I can assure you that the logic behind our actions was sound. I’m not proud of my choices. However, I am doing what I perceive to be necessary.’
‘Then you’re a fool,’ said Will wearily. ‘Was that mess at Tiwanaku really part of someone’s plan? You’re playing about with alien tech you don’t understand.’
‘As are you,’ she replied. ‘With your every waking breath.’
‘I didn’t have a choice,’ he said, his voice hardening. ‘Now tell me – what kind of assurances can you give me that the Gulliver is safe?’ His eyes pinned her while he waited for her reply.
Ann realised then with slowly unfolding horror that they hadn’t seen the Gulliver’s signature when they entered the system. It was supposed to have arrived already. Without it, she had no leverage over the man in front of her. And they had no Sam, either, which meant they were without their best strategist, too. Her confidence began to slide like a house on mud. She glanced quickly at the summary at the top of her view to check, hoping he wouldn’t notice. Sure enough, no Gulliver. Will’s flexing, superhuman hands suddenly looked that much more menacing.
‘So long as Sam Shah is in control of that ship, their chances are very good,’ she said. ‘I would never have let you come here otherwise.’
‘And if not?’
‘I won’t insult you with platitudes,’ said Ann. ‘However, there’s every reason to believe that he’s in command by now. Chesterford is gone, which means he has full override control for the Gulliver’s flight system.’
Will s
norted. ‘No, he doesn’t. His keys won’t work. Mark’s interface is backed by my security software, not the Fleet’s.’
Her breath caught at the news. The Gulliver must have headed for the Nerroskovi System, then. And with them, inevitably, the Nems.
‘If anything happens to Mark, I will hold you and your conspiracy responsible. Do you understand me?’ Will’s voice had taken on a trembling, unstable edge.
‘That is your right,’ said Ann.
‘I will find all of you, and tear each and every one of you apart with my bare hands.’
She blinked slowly, letting the threat pass through her. ‘An understandable reaction, given your current level of knowledge. I recommend that you spend the trip back to headquarters in coma. It will spare you both frustration and time.’
‘Try putting me in a coffin and see how far you get,’ he said.
Ann shook her head. ‘We do not actually wish you ill, Captain Monet. Please remember that. Everything we’ve done – that I’ve done – has been an attempt to restore balance to civilisation. Don’t imagine that any of this has been easy, or that it comes without pain. Also, please don’t try anything rash. We don’t want to have to defend ourselves and your position is weaker than you might imagine. We’ve developed countermeasures that work against your abilities. You won’t be allowed to infiltrate our computers, for instance. And we have weapons capable of either paralysing or killing you.’
‘I am here because I choose to be,’ said Will, ‘not because I’m a prisoner. I didn’t want to look at Nelson’s face any more. I don’t want to look at yours, either. But at least you’re going to lock me up and take me somewhere.’
Ann glanced away. She dearly hoped he couldn’t tell just how much this was hurting.
‘Indeed,’ she said levelly. ‘You may stay in this room if you like. It’s the best we can offer.’ She moved carefully past him to the hatch.
Will was as still as a mantis as she glided past. ‘I wanted to think you were better than this, Captain Ludik,’ he said. ‘I asked you to do one simple thing: look after the Gulliver.’
She couldn’t stand it any more. ‘A promise I would have gladly kept had it not already been superseded by the needs of the human race,’ she said quickly. ‘A promise I thought I was going to be able to keep, and would have been able to keep, had it not been for your own actions.’
‘Save your excuses,’ said Will.
Ann found herself nudged to the edge of tears. She couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
‘I look forward to your briefing,’ she said, ‘and I sincerely hope we can rebuild a relationship based on trust once you’ve been properly apprised of the situation.’
‘Good luck with that,’ said Will.
Ann let herself out and sealed the hatch behind her. She gripped the doorway, unwilling to let the crew see the storm of emotion passing across her face.
‘All clear, Captain?’ said Jaco, his tone cool.
Ann nodded, her face turned away. ‘Captain Monet will be waiting in the privacy chamber during our return to Snakepit Station.’
‘Understood.’
The ice in Jaco’s tone had raised another notch since the Ariel Two had tried to make its escape. He’d not mentioned the fact that he’d recommended a second shot, but she could tell he was thinking it. She no longer cared. That phase of the plan was over now, thank Gal. And with Sam and Mark out of the picture, they had bigger things to worry about.
11: COMPROMISE
11.1: MARK
Twenty-seven minutes after their arrival, the Photurian swarm had complete control over the tiny system. Thousands of drones flickered in waves of synchronised warp light-minutes wide. Embedded in the Gulliver’s senses, Mark felt like a fish hiding in the middle of a school of hungry piranhas.
Squads of specialised drones with what appeared to be high-speed engine modifications sat clumped around the most promising exit vectors. Others with sensor extensions swept around the in-system in packs, scanning each rock in turn. The Photurians had even started broadcasting something that looked like a clumsy soft assault, a simple query signal designed to encourage their quarry to announce its position. The mere existence of it suggested that their enemy was adapting its understanding of their machines as fast as it was acquiring language.
Over the two hours that followed, the wave of investigative drones bore down on the Gulliver’s hiding place until discovery lay just minutes away. By that point, though, Mark and his team were ready. Their furious efforts had been carefully screened by the Gulliver’s exohull. The asteroid beneath them had been quietly excavated, leaving its exterior untouched.
Their decoy, to his eyes, looked clumsy and ridiculous. A shell of badly printed rock overlaid on an engine made from battered drone parts, tacked together with welds and improvised adhesives. Numerous robots from their mesohull had sacrificed parts in order to make it function. The entire assemblage had been sprayed with an alloy-polymer mix to give it a halfway convincing spectrum. There’d been no time to do more.
‘Everyone set?’
‘We’re good to go,’ Sam replied. ‘Let’s make it happen.’
Mark triggered a set of tailored nuclear blasts inside the asteroid. The rock burst apart, revealing the faked-up ship that Sam and Zoe had created. It immediately started making for the edge of the system, trailing a mire of ionic clutter in its wake. The Gulliver, meanwhile, tumbled away with the rest of the asteroid fragments, its hull carefully tuned to make it as indistinguishable from the debris as they could manage.
Mark held his breath as their ship turned end-over-end. Their ploy would never have convinced a human observer. The Gulliver was simply too large and too symmetrical to pass for an asteroid chunk. They might as well have printed a sign on it, he thought: Innocent rubble, please disregard. Still, if the trick only bought them seconds, it might be enough.
He watched with mounting hope as nearby drones raced inwards, only to be trapped in the fake ship’s growing wake.
‘It’s working!’ said Zoe. ‘It’s actually working!’
Photurian robots streaked past them, apparently uninterested in the Gulliver, on their way to the lure where they piled up by the dozen.
As soon as he had enough drone traffic to hide in, Mark started pulsing his engine in sync with the swarm, angling away from the decoy as steeply as he dared.
‘We have a safe radius,’ said Sam. ‘Detonate.’
‘No!’ said Venetia. ‘Look, we’re drawing in some of those drones from the exit blockades. Give them a minute. We want to catch as many as possible.’
Mark’s virtual finger itched over the button. He watched the alien weapons close in.
In the end, he didn’t even have to act. Those Photurians with enough conventional velocity hurled themselves against the decoy, triggering the blast themselves. The searing white flare of an antimatter explosion flashed into existence, momentarily drowning out the light of the frail sun beside it.
The Casimir-buffers boomed all around them, as if fending off a direct bombardment. The team on the Gulliver burst into cheering as half of the swarm evaporated in a ball of light.
‘Holy shit!’ said Mark. ‘How much antimatter did you put in that thing?’
‘Enough,’ said Sam. ‘And that’s what counts.’
The remainder of the swarm abruptly decohered, their flashes desynchronised, their flight vectors a tangled mess.
‘Now!’ said Zoe. ‘While they’re still stunned. Head for their arrival vector. We need to find that transporter and take it out – it’s the only way to stop them from following us.’
‘On it.’ Mark spun the ship around. ‘Strap in, everybody. It’s going to get bumpy. Zoe, can you give me a vector?’
She slid him a display showing her workings. It revealed an empty patch of space way below the ecliptic that looked no d
ifferent from the rest of the sky.
‘This is my best guess,’ she said. ‘I’ve extrapolated from their insert point, looking for emergent patterns in their spread. If it’s not there, it should be close.’
Mark headed towards Zoe’s destination, zigzagging like a member of the disorientated swarm.
While he couldn’t see a damned thing ahead of them, he decided to trust in Zoe’s skills. And any route out of the system was good enough in his book.
Before he’d got halfway, though, the Photurians began to reorganise. They started pulsing in sync again, headed towards him. Something about his flight path had clued them in, despite his best efforts.
Mark dialled in a pattern of standard evasives. ‘Okay, everyone,’ he said. ‘Hold still, please.’
This time, he remembered to engage the gel-sleeves on the crash couches before ramping up the gees. Cocoons of protective fluid slid up around each seat, encasing the passengers and supporting their bodies. Hemojectors attached to their arms to minimise the need for lung motion.
The changes came just in time. The drones matched Mark’s evasives perfectly. Pre-emptively, almost. The machines had upped their piloting skills as well, apparently. Either that or they’d simply memorised his tricks from before. Fortunately, Mark had plenty more.
He veered abruptly, diving back on himself and forcing the drones to change course, then threw the ship into a helical slewing path. This deep in-system, the net effect on the passengers was that of being slammed repeatedly against a wall at rapidly changing angles. The effect outside was to carve out a wide channel of dead space behind his ship.
The Photurians had already proved they were clueless about disrupter fields. He’d see how long it took them to clue in to this version. Several hundred swarm-bots dived straight into his wake and hung there, their inducers crackling uselessly.
It won him only seconds. Another team of drones curved in towards him from dead ahead. Mark tacked again, using the same trick. This time, though, the Photurians didn’t fall for it. They streaked along outside the pipe of unusable space, exploiting his helical path to gain on him.
