Land of the Dead

by Thomas Harlan

  Xochitl jerked back, his face dark, ruddy bronze as the heavy cruiser’s glyph vanished from the threatwell plot.

  «Three friendly effectives remain,» exo stated, highlighting the glyphs of the dreadnaught and two remaining battle-cruisers. «Hostile numbers are now sixteen combatants, twelve noncombatants. Point-defense network is suboptimal, ECM cloud is suboptimal, launcher recycle time is suboptimal, munitions expenditure—all weapon systems—is excessive, and maneuver drive efficiency is—»

  “Enough!” Xochitl felt hot inside his armor and now he heard the whine of the air circulation system trying to shed waste heat like the buzz of a thousand mosquitoes. “Enough.”

  His head was throbbing violently and he groped for the medband override.

  * * *

  The Naniwa’s hull shook with repeated explosions as a wave of sprint missiles and penetrators crashed through her point-defense. In Command, Oc Chac was speaking rapidly into his throatmike, his status displays a sea of red and amber indicators. Koshō snarled, seeing three Khaid light cruisers and a pair of destroyers interpose themselves between her and the Tlemitl. The enemy ships were formed up tight, and their point-defense interlock had stopped the last salvo of shipkillers Konev and his gunners had spun into them.

  “Pilot, time to ’cast interlock with the Flag?”

  “Too long, kyo.” Holloway looked up, wild-eyed, and shook his head. “We’d have to bull right through them to reach interlock range.”

  “Understood, Thai-i.” Susan’s attention snapped back to the threatwell, where a second pack of Khaid lightweights was barreling in on her flank, trying to get into the shadow of her drive plume. We need to shed some of these dogs, she thought, juggling distance, velocity, and time in a heartbeat. Her stylus slashed through the executive ’well at her console.

  “Pilot, new heading. Don’t spare the horses.”

  Naniwa responded, still agile despite the burning craters littering her hull and the cloud of vented atmosphere, splintered radiating fins, and other flotsam she was shedding. The battle cruiser shifted course, angling away from the Tlemitl and Asama, which were at the center of their own hot, constantly strobing cloud of detonations, and headed dead-on to the Barrier coordinates loaded into Susan’s threatwell.

  “Course correction burn complete, kyo,” Holloway reported. “Nine hostiles now in pursuit.”

  “Incoming spread—one-hundred-six contacts,” Konev barked. “Point-defense engaging.”

  Susan hissed, feeling her ship’s pain deep down in her gut. “Sho-sa, prepare to roll mines.”

  Oc Chac nodded, attention wrenched away from damage control. He stared at her blankly for a heartbeat, then caught himself and nodded abruptly. “Hai, Chu-sa! Preparing to roll mines.”

  * * *

  Gretchen picked herself up warily and groped from bunk to desk. Gravity wobbled again, the ship groaning around them, but this time she was ready and held on. Hummingbird had wedged himself into a corner of the room, a comp still in his hand—face tight with some tremendous effort of concentration—and she saw his fingers were a blur on the interfaces. All of his equipment, even scattered under the bunks, was still in operation. Gritting her teeth against a series of bad bruises, Anderssen found her own field comp and flipped it open. Her models were still running, and now they had resolved themselves down to only two alternatives.

  “Where are we, Crow?” she gasped, fumbling at the control pad. “We’ve got to get all of this gear secured before we lose g-deck integrity entirely.”

  All of her equipment shoveled into the backpack without a problem. A roll of stickytape secured the pack to the bunk, which was in turn welded to the wall of the cabin. Her hand-comp stayed with her, though its interface was tiny in comparison to the bigger units. Hummingbird’s setup was harder to deal with, particularly when her shoulders were itching at the prospect of the next abrupt maneuver. But in a few moments, all of it was stowed save the t-relay, which was a Yule tree of status lights. Grasping the main unit, she cast around for something to secure the device to.

  “Leave be!” Hummingbird spared a dark, furious glance for her. “I’ve almost broken into the Khaid battlecast and we’ll need that to survive the next hour. Pin it to the floor, if you must, but don’t move it or disassemble the mechanism.”

  You’ll sing a different tune, carrion bird, if this thing cracks you in the head.…

  She strapped it down as best she could, feeling the metal radiating hot enough to scorch her fingertips. Then Anderssen crawled back to the other corner, wedged herself into place, and thumbed up the display on her hand-comp. Plot position, she ordered the little machine. On the sidebar, Gretchen was heartened to see that node 333 was still in synch and processing data at a blistering rate. Excellent, but—

  Her latest modeling pass had discarded the data preprocessed by the Mirror scientists and culled from the Korkunov’s initial telemetry. Something nagged at her, saying it was too old to be accurate. Instead, drawing on the sheer processing power and storage offered by node 333, she’d asked the comps to sweep through the most basic data flowing back from the Imperial science probes and break it down, looking for gravitational anomalies at a sub-Planck scale. The descriptions of the damage inflicted on the Calexico hinted at a mechanism capable of dissecting battle-steel, which implied the weapon was able to break down the interlocking matrix of the armor without diffusing its impact energy across the enormous, mutually supporting weave of the material.

  Her comps now revealed a new “map” of the surrounding space, one far different in detail than the Imperial data they’d received—or stolen. Anderssen cursed, her body jolted with fear. Tearing free of the restraints, she was at Hummingbird’s side in the blink of an eye. She seized hold of the old man’s ear, drawing a bright crimson pinpoint of blood with the corner of one nail.

  “Crow! Come back to me. Captain Koshō is trying to use the Barrier as a weapon, and the Imperial data we have is no good for this sector. Break me into the command circuit, right now!”

  * * *

  “Rack eight away,” Oc Chac announced, as a fresh cluster of plasma mine icons popped up on the threatwell. “We’re done, kyo.” The Mayan looked back at Susan, his chiseled face questioning.

  “Not enough,” the Nisei woman said, watching the last of her area denial munitions spin away behind the Naniwa. The battle-cruiser was pushing hard at maximum-v for the level of particulates in this area of space, and there were still nine Khaiden cruisers and destroyers racing after her. “Weapons, start dumping delayed-fuse bomb-pods into our wake. I want them on a timer and dark until they tick over on intercept.”

  Then she swiveled around, considering the threatwell. Naniwa was now closing fast on the forbidden area indicated by the Mirror scientists. Stabbing flares started to pop up behind them, catching one of the Khaiden cruisers with a direct hit. The enemy ship staggered, losing way, and then plowed through three more plasma mines. Atmosphere began to vent from dozens of punctures, but the other Khaid ships dodged past, their captains and crews alert enough to realize the danger and begin laying down a sweeping pattern of computer-controlled ballistic rounds.

  “Pilot, prepare to rotate ship,” Koshō announced, glaring at Holloway. “Rotate in one minute, sixteen—”

  Stop, you’ve got to stop!

  She jerked, hearing an unfamiliar voice shouting in her earbug.

  “Belay that order,” Susan snarled, “who is this?”

  Gretchen Anderssen, Captain Koshō. Your charts are out of date—I’m updating your display—now!

  “Jigoku-e ochiro!” The Chu-sa’s shouted curse startled everyone on the bridge, and Oc Chac turned to stare at her in surprise. Susan’s complexion shaded almost porcelain. The threatwell display mutated wildly, the Mirror coordinates for the invisible Barrier wiped away and replaced by a series of veil-like patterns, overlapping on one another and filled with pockets and eddies.

  “Forty seconds to intersection, kyo,” Holloway yelped, his
console throwing a dozen alarms.

  “Pilot, hard over!” Koshō snarled, punching the collision alarm glyph on her console. Then her stylus stabbed out, marking a new course in the ’well.

  “Thirty-nine seconds!”

  Naniwa groaned from stem to stern, engines cutting out as the ship rotated, and then flaring as they slewed around into a new heading. Shedding velocity to make the turn, the battle-cruiser was suddenly seconds “behind” where the constant stream of Khaiden missiles expected her to be. Penetrators rained onto her newly exposed “roof,” their onboard comps triggering detonation. Hammerblows boomed across the shipskin, shredding tiles and overloading the thermocouples. Radiating fins splintered all across the Naniwa’s hull. Secondary plasma charges pierced the shipskin itself, blowing enormous gaps through to the secondary hull. Behind the plasma charge, the penetrator rounds themselves collided with the inner armor at tremendous speed. The triple layer of armor mesh convulsed, trying to shed impact energy across the whole shipframe, but dozens of tiny ruptures punched through, spewing thermonuclear plasma into two compartments just fore of Engineering. Atmosphere vented, blowing out a chaff-cloud of debris.

  “Multiple punctures,” Oc Chac bawled, “we’ve lost environment on decks nineteen and twenty. Four compartments compromised. I have a radiation fire in compartment eighty-one.”

  “Sho-sa, get your teams in,” Susan barked, “Pilot—get me some headway!”

  Her engines intact, the Naniwa accelerated away on a sharply different vector. Koshō held her breath, watching her ship veer hideously close to the shimmering veils plotted on her ’well.

  * * *

  In their cabin on six, Gretchen and Hummingbird were torn through their restraints and slammed hard against the wall. Gravity fluctuated violently for a microsecond and the comps ripped free as well, smashing into the walls, displays splintering into ruin. Bloody, one arm stabbing with terrible, blinding pain, Gretchen found herself pinned against the ceiling. Alarm Klaxons screamed and the bitter smell of burning insulation flooded the air. Crushed by a giant hand, Anderssen struggled to breathe. “Crow! Crow!”

  Hummingbird was pinned as well, though his head lolled limply to one side.

  * * *

  Four hundred thousand kilometers behind the Naniwa, the pack of Khaiden ships reacted as well, shedding velocity to make an equally abrupt course change. Three of them managed this quite smartly, matching the battle-cruiser’s relative angle. They continued to spit missiles at the Imperial ship, though their rate of fire slacked off sharply. The other five also made the turn, but too slowly. Their icons interpenetrated with the first of the veils plotted on Susan’s display and abruptly winked out.

  “Score on goal,” Koshō breathed, only too aware of how close she’d come to blundering into the same fate. “Pilot, get me a new intercept to the Tlemitl!”

  * * *

  Aboard the Firearrow, Xochitl grimaced as one of his Jaguars cut away the mangled wreckage of his shockchair. Flag Command was filled with smoke and guttering flames from a shipkiller impact which had torn through the secondary hull. Able to move once more, the Prince crawled free, shaking off bits of burning metal and fabric. Two of his bodyguards were down, along with most of the junior officers and ratings who had been at their stations.

  “Raise damage control,” Xochitl ordered his exo. “Cuauhhuehueh Koris, status of the rest of your squad?”

  “Only us in comm contact, Tlatocapilli.” The Jaguar Knight shook his head slowly. “I’m not getting a response from Command either.”

  «Thai-sa Yoemon is dead,» reported the exo. «Autonomic systems report that Main Command has lost environmental control due to a penetrator hit. No life signs remain in the compartment.»

  “Mains are down,” the Prince said aloud, replying to Koris. “Find me the secondary and let’s get moving.”

  The intership comm channel was fuzzing with static, making even short-range conversations impossible. “Exo, what is this?”

  «A Khaid disruptor bug has entered the ship via a penetrator. Internal communications on the regular channels will be impossible until the module is located and destroyed or damage control reroutes around the infection.»

  “Find me a clear channel, then.”

  The Jaguars were already moving, hustling the Prince out into the corridor. The hatchway tried to close behind them and stuck, flat streamers of black smoke oozing along the roof. A fire suppression system kicked in, flooding the hallway with foam. Xochitl wiped his faceplate clear and jogged on. The assistive mechanisms in his suit would let him run a long way without tiring.

  * * *

  Four decks away, Engineer Second Helsdon and two of his crew slipped pry bars behind the cover of a section of shattered comm conduit and wrenched hard. The cover tore away, revealing six meters of shredded, blackened crystal. Freezing wind, howling down the passageway from some hull rupture, pummelled their z-suits, laying down frost on every surface. Malcolm jammed a cutting tool behind the junction at his end of the conduit and popped the interface free—off to his right, the other two men were doing the same.

  “Clear!” Two Jun-i hustled up, bearing a length of replacement crystal. They shoved the new conduit into place and Helsdon locked down his end, a hand-comp tucked into his elbow. A moment later, with diagnostic leads attached, he had a string of green lights on the status display. The circuit came back up with a few hiccups. “Done here,” he shouted. They’d manually switched to a little-used comm channel when the main network went down, but there was still interference. “On to the next.”

  “Doubt if we have all the holes patched, Engineer,” one of the warrant officers remarked with a strained laugh.

  “Yeah, only ten or twenty to go,” someone else’s voice came through the suit-to-suit line. “What now?”

  “Wait one.” Helsdon grunted with exhaustion, thumbing through a succession of panes on his hand-comp, the team crowded around him, faces expectant for the next task.

  * * *

  The battle-steel hatchway to Secondary Command cycled open and Xochitl and his Jaguars crowded in. The Sho-sa, who had found himself commanding the dreadnaught when primary Command and Flag had gone off-line, jerked around, his face ashy.

  “Tlatocapilli, I’m glad to see you! We’ve—”

  “Out of the chair,” the Méxica lord seized the lieutenant commander by the arm and dragged him away from the command console. “You’re XO now—get me damage control back on-line and report munitions inventory!”

  The main threatwell was still functioning as Xochitl settled into the shockchair, taking stock of the situation. He’d been out of contact for nearly thirty minutes, but his exo jacked in to the main boards and the Prince saw the gun decks were still in operation, hammering away at the swarm of Khaiden battleships pacing the dreadnaught. The new battle-shields wavered in and out of existence, flaring bright with missile impacts.

  «Forty percent coverage remaining,» exo reported. «Launchers are at sixty percent, though four port-side are jammed.»

  The Asama had fallen away behind, crippled and shuddering from secondary explosions deep in her core, crew bailing out in a cluster of shuttles and evac-capsules.

  Xochitl waved his hand and the threatwell reconfigured; the myriad points of Imperial distress beacons vanished, leaving only the combatants.

  “Lord Prince,” the Sho-sa ventured. “We have stowage to take them aboard—”

  “Leave them,” Xochitl growled, his command console flickering with alternate course plots at a blinding rate. At main navigation, the Thai-i sitting at the station had drawn back, finding his v-panes and control displays no longer responding to his touch. Suddenly the alternates dropped away and the Prince nodded to himself. “New course by my mark, full power. We need breathing room!”

  Engines thundering, the decking vibrating with a deep basso roar, Tlemitl charged away from the wrecked Asama, all surviving launchers and gun nacelles concentrated on two Khaid heavy cruisers which had
drawn the unlucky course to stand in the Prince’s way. Both broke off, trying to change vector as multiple shipkillers slammed into their deflectors, breaking through to sear armor and shatter their engine rings. Undaunted, the Firearrow accelerated towards the Pinhole.

  * * *

  Three-quarters of a million kilometers behind the swirling firefight around the super-dreadnaught, Koshō grasped the Prince’s intent immediately. The Naniwa was already accelerating to join him, having shrugged aside the last of the lighter ships, but now the Khaid battleships had reformed, relocking their point-defense and fire control. Swift as harriers, they came hard on the chase and stood directly between the battle-cruiser and the flagship. Thoughtful, Susan tapped up the channel to deck six.

  “Anderssen-sana, can you get me better telemetry?”

  There was no response, only intermittent static and then a “cabin inhabitants are unavailable at this time” message generated by shipboard comm. Face tight with dismay, Koshō switched channels.

  “Damage Control, Medical. Get teams to cabin nine on deck six, immediately!”

  In the ’well, her course and that of the Tlemitl were fast converging on the outer edge of the debris field from the Can. Beyond the wrecked station loomed the invisible passage of the Pinhole, though now Susan realized that even if the Scouts had found an opening—there was no surety it led anywhere save into a veil of threads which would gut her ship like a teppan-chef.

  “Comm, any response from the Flag?”

  The comm officer shook her head, eyes huge. “Nothing, Chu-sa. She’s still moving and fighting, but I’ve no response from any shipside system, not even on identicast.”

  Does he even see we’re here? Koshō discarded the thought. “Chu-i, you find me someone to talk to. If anyone can circumvent the Khaid jamming, the interference from the dust cloud, and the radiation blaze from so many wrecked ships, you can.”

  “Hai, Chu-sa, hai!”