Branegate

by James C. Glass

  John rifled the man’s pockets, took his keys and his cash with poly-gloved hands. He’d intended to exit through the kitchen, but when he got there an attendant was busily wiping down tables for the following day. He didn’t see or hear John, and so his life was spared. John Haight walked out the front doors of the baths and into the night.

  He drove to Marcellus’ residence in a company car, and parked it in the curving driveway of the estate, a key opening the gate for him after three tries. The man had been a bookkeeper type, with rigid habits and schedules. John had watched him for weeks. It was a Thursday, and the estate was empty, the servants enjoying a day of their own freedom.

  John made no efforts at silence, and tried five keys in the big front door before it opened. The foyer was empty and dark. There was a high ceiling, and two staircases ahead of him curving left and right. He exhaled softly with relief. He didn’t want to kill an innocent servant, but would if one came. He reached up, seated the pistol more deeply into its holster, and climbed the stairs to the second floor of the residence.

  He found what he was looking for in a small, cluttered office at the back of the house. The computer was linked by microwave to satellite, and then relay to both Galena and Gan. Wallace had provided him with all the access codes, and John Haight sat down to write a letter he hoped would provoke a war:

  Thisken and Ost Hypergolics

  Executive Officer

  Link M, Route 36650, Gan 12

  Attn. Azar Khalil

  Dear Azar:

  Your brother is dead. I just killed him with two shots to the head, and I attach photos in evidence of same. My intention is to kill you next.

  I was just a young man when you were on the Council of Bishops of Kratola. That was before The Church took power, and became corrupted by it. I came here on a mission to create free societies in our colonies, and you were sent after me to corrupt all of it. This is reason enough to kill you, but I have more. You had my son murdered. He’s back now, and so am I, but you will pay for that murder with your life.

  My son goes now to destroy the invasion fleet sent to aid you from the other side. Our new technology remains secret, but its power will be demonstrated soon, and I welcome any opportunity to engage with your military force. The best you can do is take what you can carry, and return to your fellow Bishops on Kratola before my hands are around your throat.

  Respectfully yours,

  Leonid Zylak

  John read the letter again, proofed it, and attached three photos. Blind carbons to the Emperor of Galena and the single Bishop there were instructed, and a single tap of a key sent all of it away into space.

  He turned off the machine, left the house, and locked the door behind him. It was a ninety-minute walk to his apartment, but the night was clear and cool. He walked briskly, and thought about the ways Azar Khalil might react to his provocation.

  By the time he reached the apartment, he felt he had plans for all eventualities.

  *

  When Nicolus called, Rasim Sidique had already read the message. The first thing he’d done was contact his embassy on Gan and order the staff off-planet within the hour, leaving behind a handful of carefully placed agents in the streets.

  “He’ll attack us for certain, now. He has to get past us to Elderon, and he needs our resources. We have no defense, sire,” said Nicolus.

  “I know that. I’m sure Leonid Zylak has thought of it, too. We’ll just have to wait and see which direction Khalil jumps. He might even run away. I don’t even know what new technology Zylak is talking about.”

  “You’ll be safer on Elderon, sire. The people will understand.”

  “No they won’t, and I don’t intend to leave them,” said the Emperor of Galena. “Everything is in the hands of The Source,” he said, and then thought, and in the hands of Leonid Zylak, wherever he is.

  CHAPTER 40

  On the day Trae and Myra went off to war, John Haight went with them to the private shuttleport of Zylak Industries, and walked them to the shuttle. They shook hands.

  “Take care of yourselves, and don’t take anything for granted. Not having an alternative plan can kill you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Trae, and saluted him in mock seriousness.

  “Not funny,” said John. “None of us have experience with this sort of thing. You’ll have to think fast.”

  “We can do that, you know. The crews heading to Grand Portal have the hardest job.”

  “I don’t think so. The keepers, even the pickets, are on their own, with no connection to a particular government. You’ll be dealing with military people dedicated to Kratola and The Church. They’re ready to die, if necessary.”

  “What about Azar Khalil?”

  “That’s my concern. Don’t worry about it. If he finds out the invasion fleet he’s counting on has been destroyed or turned back, he probably won’t be a problem. He’s just biding his time, now. There’s nothing new on him.”

  “See you in a few months, then,” said Trae.

  “That’s the plan. I’ll be right here to welcome you back.”

  Myra suddenly put her arms around John’s neck, and gave him a hug.

  John smiled. “What was that for?”

  “You’re Trae’s father, and I felt like doing it.”

  “Anytime,” said John, then, “Trust in The Source for wisdom and clarity of thought, but trust in yourselves to get the job done. Come back alive, please.”

  Trae shook his hand again, then turned abruptly and followed Myra up the twelve steps into the shuttle. The door slid shut behind him, and there was a sudden unease in his stomach, a sudden thought that he might not ever see John Haight again.

  They buckled in as liftoff fans began to whine. Myra grasped his arm. “You’re worried about him? I bet he’s more worried about us.”

  “Maybe. I don’t think he told us everything about the situation on Gan. War could come here before we even get back.”

  The shuttle lifted off, rose to five thousand feet before thrusters cut in, and they enjoyed a few moments of two gee flight. There were no ports in the vessel, and no view. Seven minutes of flight, a slight bump when they locked onto their Guppy. They cycled through the lock, and climbed the ladder to the bridge, where Wil Dietz awaited them.

  “Your seats are ready in engineering. Let the adventure begin,” he said cheerfully.

  “Only if we come out of it alive,” said Trae, and Wil laughed.

  “Glad to see you here as our pilot,” said Myra. “We weren’t certain it would happen.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, and also for recommending me.” Wil smiled, and went back to his checklist for flight.

  Engineering was an alcove off the bridge, and their seats were in the reclined position. They would be mildly sedated for much of the trip, making nearly fifty jumps a day and pushing the ship towards maximum capacity in their sprint towards the galactic core.

  Through intelligence relayed by his parents, the location of the invasion fleet was known within a few light years, but its jumps were erratic as it chased his great-grandmother’s fleet towards the frontier. Trae had to admire her stubborn courage. If she hadn’t kept to her frontier-bound course she would long ago have lost her pursuers. The woman had a goal, and would not deviate from it.

  Final version of Guppy had been modified to carry five Nova craft, and four internal missile pods had been added forward. For large targets, the branegate-generation capability remained their most formidable weapon. And they would be going up against fifty ships.

  They strapped in, and put on their masks. The control of a nicely sedative gas was at their fingertips, as was a tube for water. For the next three weeks, they would live on protein and other synth bars, and have half an hour each ship’s cycle for running and pulley exercises in a rotating cylinder aft of their compartment. Behind that, Nova pilots ate and slept in tiny cells near their spacecraft.

  The ship was moving before they were completely strapped in. They’d eate
n little that morning to minimize nausea, and now they were hungry.

  “Commence jumps in twenty minutes,” announced Wil, and they hastened to sip water and administer a trickle of sedative gas to themselves.

  “Here comes the boring part,” said Trae, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Not for me,” said Myra. “There are some interesting problems I can play with in my head, if I’m not too sick or hungry.”

  Acceleration went to one gee, and stayed there. They breathed their first whiffs of relaxing gas, and drifted off into a routine they expected to last three weeks at most: sleeping, eating, occasional exercise sandwiched in between nauseating, disorienting jumps at half-hour intervals.

  In the quiet, boring hours of nothingness, Myra calculated in her head, and Trae reached out to his parents before and after passing them near the frontier. Mostly he received new coordinates of the invasion fleet relayed from his great-grandmother, who seemed to be enjoying her game of hide and seek. There were also serious moments when they discussed his future with Myra, hopefully on a planet free of Church tyranny.

  Wil exercised with them once a day, running like a squirrel in a cage, pulling on elastic straps and going nowhere while they reviewed strategies once the invasion fleet was engaged. Three weeks came and went, and they still hadn’t found it. Trae was now in touch hourly with his parents, for it was only his mother who had a direct link with great-grandmother Nat. With all the talk from and about the woman, Trae and Myra were becoming anxious to meet her. The elderly family matriarch was being a warrior in her own way. In her final message she said her little ship was now drifting, and she was allowing the invasion force to close in. She gave her coordinates, asked for them to please hurry, and broke contact.

  Wil sent the message to the other three Guppies accompanying them, and a precise, final jump was calculated. Trae and Myra took no sedatives, and were quite awake when the jump was made. When the swirling in their heads began to subside, they unbuckled themselves and rushed to the bridge to look at the viewscreen.

  Their Guppy had returned to real space a few hundred miles ahead of the invasion fleet, and fifty ships larger than Guppy were rushing towards them at orbital speeds. The ships seemed to be slowing down. The scanners did a sweep, and sorted out ships according to size, finding nothing smaller than a B-class freighter.

  There was no sign of great-grandmother Nat’s ship.

  CHAPTER 41

  Of all the pilots on Elderon, only four had any history with Grand Portal or passage beyond it. One of these was Simon Ziel, now well into his seventh lifetime. And he had mostly spent all seven of them sailing into space.

  Simon had originally been born on Kratola, had grown up there, watched his own father sail away in fusion powered ships to neighboring worlds before there had been a Grand Portal or a Council of Bishops. He’d apprenticed under his father for four years in hydraulics, then engineering. His performance was first rate, and he was sent to Marine Academy with tuition and living expenses paid. When he graduated with honors in Astronautical Engineering, he’d never seen his father so proud. The man had actually shed tears at the ceremony. But more reasons for pride were ahead. His father’s company sponsored him for both pilot’s training and an advanced engineering degree. And at the age of twenty-nine he sailed his own ship, a C-class freighter called ‘Fate’, into space.

  Three lifetimes later he piloted an A-class freighter through Grand Portal and headed for the colonies, never to return, for Zylak Industries discovered him and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. And he piloted their ships for two-plus lifetimes back to Grand Portal, transferring goods to family industries on the other side.

  Now in his early fifties, he hadn’t flown for ten years, had assumed an executive position in Transportation, and was content with it. But then the Guppies were being assembled, and transportation to the galactic core in just weeks was suddenly possible, and an old friend, Wil Dietz, was badgering him to fly again.

  It’s in the blood, they say.

  Simon had a wife and two grown children in this lifetime. He knew he had to fly again, and his wife agreed. He would only be away weeks at a time if he qualified. The ship was experimental, and far advanced technically. His age might work against him.

  He qualified, flew seven test runs, making forty-six jumps and projecting twelve branegates up to distances of two miles. Only then did they tell him what his next assignment might be.

  Telling him was left for Wil, for they were close friends. A war was coming, he said, an invasion fleet sent by Kratola to put the colonies under the thumb of The Church. Leonid Zylak’s own son would lead a flight of Guppies to intercept the fleet, stop it, turn it around or destroy it, using the branegate as a weapon. Simon would lead a flight of four Guppies to Grand Portal and take control of it. He might be required to destabilize it or destroy the thing completely, depending on the outcome with the invasion fleet.

  The idea was terrifying, but he was best qualified for the job. He talked it all out with his dear wife before making a decision.

  Simon Ziel accepted the assignment, and had time for several practice runs, using the branegate against moonlets. After only three runs he was told his departure was at hand. An emergency had developed in handling the invasion fleet, and he had to leave earlier than anticipated.

  He enjoyed a somewhat anxious but wonderful night with his wife. His children could only be told he was on a flight test. By noon of the following day he was on board Guppy IV and leading three other ships out of orbit.

  Five weeks later he was seventy-five thousand light years away from his home and family. Grand Portal was a greenish, elongated star straight ahead, and one short jump away. Simon studied the scanner views on his screen. The portal was exactly as he remembered it from a lifetime ago, the same keepers, stabilizing power generators, nearby black holes only light days away. All unchanged. The generators were the vulnerable points, but he’d have to take out all of them to destroy the whole configuration. The keepers were too large to be handled by any branegate he could project.

  They prepared for the final jump, and Nova pilots scrambled to their ships. Five-drop ports along the slender tail of Guppy IV could put them into space in seconds. Missiles were checked and armed, but ports kept closed during jump.

  Charging time was exactly twelve seconds, not a millisecond more or less. “Initiating jump,” said Simon softly, and pressed a button on his console to dump a mass of exotic particles from Guppy IV’s plenum into the fabric of spacetime, pinching it.

  After several lifetimes of space-time jumping, there was no lapse of awareness for Simon Ziel or his crew. They traveled four light-months in the blink of an eye, and Grand Portal filled the viewscreen at a distance of twenty thousand miles. Main thrusters were shut down, and they came in on vernier engines to one side of the broad transit lane. A few ships were moored there, held in place by their verniers in a gravitational field so complex the mooring could only be achieved by computer.

  Within minutes they were hailed by Portal Authority on standard frequency.

  “Unidentified vessel, please identify yourself and give origin and destination.”

  Simon pressed a button opening the four missile ports on the nose of his ship, and initiated a plenum charge. Behind him he could hear the faint whine of turbines in readying Nova craft.

  “This is Guppy IV. We are a military vessel out of Elderon, a colony world, and have been sent here to defend ourselves against attack. We carry major weapons, and five attack spacecraft. Our adversary is Kratola, and the invasion fleet that planet has sent against us. That fleet passed through here several months ago.”

  There was a long pause, perhaps in astonishment, perhaps to alert picket ships. “Nova commanders, seal hatches, prepare for drop, target and destroy any attacking vessels,” Simon said softly, but his heart was racing.

  “Guppy IV, we do not berth military vessels, nor have any such vessels passed through Grand Portal. You are in error.
”

  Simon sighed. “If you wish, I can give you an exact date fifty major vessels passed through here fully loaded with military personnel, armored vehicles and fighter craft bound for the frontier. These vessels were supposedly inspected, certified as merchant class, and passed through by Portal Authority. We have witnesses to the transit, and reason to believe you have indirectly participated in an eminent military attack on our planet and its neighboring worlds.”

  Again a long pause, then, “New blips, sir. Six small vessels coming at us from two o’clock. Going to optical.” A picture from engineering came up on the screen. Six picket ships were headed towards them in vee formation at high speed.

  “Drop,” said Simon, and there was a thump as five Nova fighters dropped from the long belly of Guppy IV.

  “Portal Authority, withdraw your pickets, or we will destroy them.” Simon’s heart was hammering hard, now.

  The Nova fighters formed an arc beyond the nose of Guppy IV and hovered there. The picket ships slowed, and came to a standstill a mile off.

  “Deploying your fighters can be considered an act of aggression, Guppy IV.”

  “Not if we’re defending ourselves against your pickets.” Simon pressed a lever, and Sniffer was deployed in four seconds. “Charge plenum, two minutes,” he said to his engineer.

  Another long pause. Perhaps they’d noticed the strange beak appearing on Guppy IV’s face.

  “We must board you for inspection and certification. Call back your attack spacecraft immediately.”

  “There’s nothing to certify. We’re not making transit. Our purpose is to be sure no other military vessels pass through here to attack our planets, and that the fleet you so carelessly let through goes home again or is destroyed. To that end we’re prepared to destroy any ship that attacks us, and if necessary we’ll destabilize Grand Portal or shut it down completely.”