Shiplord: A First Contact Technothriller (Earth's Last Gambit Book 3)

by Felix R. Savage

  “There it goes,” Jack sighed. “Decelerating like a motherfucker.”

  “That’s not the Victory,” Skyler said, behind him.

  “No, it’s the Lightbringer. Remember, the ship that’s on its way to snuff out humanity—” Jack turned to look at Skyler, and brought his forefinger and thumb together— “like this?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Skyler said. “I think about Hannah every damn day, which is actually none of your business.”

  The alien behemoth was now widening its lead on the SoD by the minute. The Lightbringer would cut in front of the sun, as seen from the direction of Mars and Earth’s orbits. The SoD had lost any chance of overtaking it when they swung the other way around Mars to meet the Victory. The two human spaceships would pass behind the sun, and arrive at Earth five long months from now.

  Unless …

  Jack still believed they could have their cake and eat it. But he kept that to himself for now. He felt bad about reminding Skyler of his loss, and didn’t want to get his hopes up.

  “OK, here we go, the Victory.” Glancing at the handy English labels that Hriklif had put on the consoles, he threw the optical telescope display up on the wall.

  Now that they were practically alongside the Victory, they could observe it in near-photographic detail. The resupply ship was a mini-SoD, about half the size of the original, with one big difference: no rotating hab. A tapered truss tower ended in externally mounted tanks and the bell of an MPD drive. At the forward end of the ship, the truss tower housed a stack of small modules, like a sleeve full of tennis balls. Lacking a bridge, the ship looked headless.

  “Now here’s the IR view. We’re getting a temperature reading of about twenty degree from all those cargo containers.”

  “Very weird. Very weird indeed,” Skyler said. The sarcastic snap was back in his voice, and Jack smiled.

  “Just remember, Sky, we’re not doing this for money …”

  “We’re doing it for shitloads of money!” Skyler finished. Spaceballs had become required viewing on the SoD. The men savored the quaint idea of doing crazy shit for money. The rriksti just thought Dark Helmet was hilarious.

  Alexei radioed over from the bridge of the SoD. “It’s about time.”

  “OK. Coming.”

  Jack and Skyler retraced their steps through the cabin of the Cloudeater. Jack averted his gaze from the patients in hospital. Their eyes felt like midges biting him, desperately sucking hope. He couldn’t let them down.

  On the bridge of the SoD, Alexei had been dripping thrust out of the RCS bundles, making final positioning adjustments. Jack took over the controls. The Victory was now so close they could see it on the external camera feed. The two ships were like top-heavy scooters laden with live chickens, pigs, and furniture, edging towards each other in an ungainly shuffle, while racing at full speed towards the sun.

  Jack took a deep breath. “Ranging.”

  Using the comms laser—the same comms laser with which he’d been feeding telemetry to the Victory for weeks—he triggered a squirt and fed the figures into the targeting computer. 2.2 kilometers.

  All four men waited in tense silence.

  Jack shrugged. “Powering up the rails.”

  A low growl started up, almost below the threshhold of hearing, and rapidly climbed the scale. The lights dimmed as the SoD’s railguns sucked power from other systems throughout the ship.

  “You have five seconds to come out with your hands up,” Jack drawled. He was starting to enjoy himself, despite the nervewracking tension, or because of it. “Five … four …”

  Sitting alongside the Victory, they were in perfect position to fire a broadside at the smaller ship.

  “Three … two …”

  Of course, the Victory had no way of knowing the railguns weren’t loaded with actual slugs.

  “One. Zero.”

  Alexei had loaded some tracer rounds earlier. Jack mashed his finger on the firing button. The bright streaks of fire sped towards the Victory.

  The radio shrilled.

  “For fuck’s sake, you maniacs. Don’t shoot!”

  Grinning, Jack gestured for Alexei to respond.

  “This is the SoD. Victory, who are we talking to?”

  “Is that Alexei Dmitrovich? Ty zhiv? Kak dyela?” The voice on the other end of the radio broke into a stream of Russian.

  Alexei made a face of astonishment. “I know this guy!” he hissed. “It’s Grigory!”

  “Grigory who?”

  “Nikolov. Remember, Jack, he was on the ISS with us. Now he’s here!”

  *

  Yet Alexei’s astonishment could hardly have exceeded Jack’s when they completed the docking maneuvers, and three astronauts floated out of the supposedly unmanned Victory.

  One Orlan suit—that would be Alexei’s old buddy Grigory.

  One Starliner, the new suit NASA and Boeing had developed to replace the Z-2.

  And another Starliner with a Rising Sun patch on the shoulder.

  The Cloudeater was already docked on one side of the SoD’s truss tower, so the Victory had had to squeeze in on the other side. It had spat out a bouquet of cables with clamps on the ends, powered by cold gas thrusters. Jack had known NASA could build something like that, if they ever got off their duff … The cables had flown through the void, camera-guided, and clamped onto the SoD’s truss tower. It had been a fun ride for a few moments until the two ships’ velocity vectors clicked into alignment. Then the cables were winched taut, snuggling the Victory nose-down against the truss tower, with its tail sticking over the bioshield.

  “Come on in,” said Jack to the three astronauts, floating inside the SoD’s truss tower, underneath the belly of the Victory.

  They’d debated how to handle this, and decided on a charm offensive. Keep Grigory … sorry, Grigory and his two friends … off balance. Give them a chance to explain themselves.

  “Airlock’s this way.”

  As soon as the last of the newcomers entered the airlock, Jack radioed to Brbb. “Coast’s clear.”

  “Roger,” responded Brbb. The Krijistal, their suits stealthed black, flitted through the truss tower on their way to the Victory.

  “Be careful,” Jack warned. “This might not be all of them.”

  The Krijistal rapidly explored all five of the Victory’s modules and informed Jack that there was no one else on board. “But there are lots and lots of boxes!” Brbb said happily. Jack could hear the other Krijistal ululating in Rristigul on the channel. Brbb’s voice filtered through the clamor. “We are opening the first box ... Yes. YES. Arsenic … cadmium … mercury … copper …”

  Thank you, God. Jack touched his rosary through his suit, offering a silent prayer of gratitude. “That’s fantastic, Brbb,” he said. “Right. You sort out the cargo. I’ll sort out the crew.”

  Grigory and his friends had a lot of explaining to do. But they had apparently brought the Shit We Need—including the Shit We Really, REALLY Need: micronutrients for the rriksti. That made Jack feel a lot better. He dropped into the airlock, waited out the cycle, and flew into the storage module.

  Surrounded by rriksti, the American astronaut was in the act of clambering out of his Starliner.

  Hang on.

  Her Starliner.

  “Linda!” Jack cried in joyous disbelief.

  Trim, elfin-faced, her short dark hair tied back in a ponytail, his old colleague Linda Moskowitz hadn’t changed a bit. They’d been in the same NASA class, the Peacocks of 2004. Jack went to hug her.

  The look on her face warned him off just in time. Braking his flight, he saw the scene afresh through her eyes.

  Rriksti had crowded into the storage module to greet the newcomers. To Linda, they must look like … well, aliens. And Jack, Alexei, Skyler, and Giles probably looked even more horrific—long-haired, gaunt, wearing funkadelic tights. There was no question that they smelled worse than the rriksti. The expressions on Linda and Grigory’s faces said that whatever w
arnings they received had not sufficed.

  Christ, I could have at least shaved, Jack thought, rubbing his bearded chin. He knew this wouldn’t have occurred to him if one of the newcomers wasn’t a woman. Linda’s femininity reminded him how long it had been since he or any of the other men even tried to uphold the standards of human civilization. Their stunt with the railguns kind of made the point.

  The Japanese astronaut unzipped his Starliner and pulled his helmet off. “Hey, long time no see!” he yelled happily.

  “Koichi!” Jack exclaimed.

  Without the slightest hesitation, Koichi Masuoka flew towards Jack. Remembering that the reserved Japanese astronaut never had gone in for hugs, Jack stuck out his hand. The mid-air handshake ended up with them bobbing up and down like opposite ends of a seesaw, bumping into the ogling rriksti. Everyone laughed, breaking the ice.

  “So you made it here after all!” Jack said.

  Koichi had been penciled in for Hannah’s slot on the SoD until China’s rivalry with Japan got him kicked off the mission.

  “Better late than never!” Koichi grinned. “How was Europa?”

  “Hardly worth getting out of bed for.”

  The exchange reminded them all of the dark background to their reunion: the four lost members of the SoD’s crew, and the spiraling political chaos on Earth, including the disintegration of China into 105 separate states, at last count.

  Jack shook off the clouds of gloom that threatened to close in. “Well, come on into the main hab. We’ve organized a welcome party for you!”

  He’d been afraid this would go badly. But the Victory’s crew had brought the Shit We Need. That was bigger than any political complications that might be lurking in the background. And it was just so damn good to see their familiar faces.

  “A party, Jack? Oh, you shouldn’t have,” said Linda, retrieving her poise.

  “Well—we’re hoping you’ve brought the food,” Jack said with a grin.

  It remained to be seen why Mission Control had deceived them by presenting the Victory as an unmanned ship, and insisting on radio silence.

  But Jack decided not to bring that up right now. “Small world!” comments helped the conversation to flow, and soon they were talking as easily as if no time had passed since the SoD left Earth.

  The three Victory astronauts—no newbies, after all—masterfully played down their undoubted shock when they saw the jungle in the main hab. Giles gave them a quick tour. “You have already seen these,” he said when he caught them staring at his hands and feet. “Everyone on Earth has seen them, no? It is not interesting. A cheap technological marvel. Look around and you will see something really marvellous: plants from Proxima b! You see, because there is no UV in the spectrum of Proxima Centauri, one of the biggest catalysts for mutation is absent. So evolution has proceeded slowly. It is as if we live among plants from the Cretaceous period on Earth …”

  Yes, the prehistoric appearance of Imfi vegetation was no accident. The rriksti themselves had reached the evolutionary pinnacle of sapience thanks to the mutagenic effects of X-rays, which they’d understandably come to believe were emanations from God.

  They settled on the hill, which was Jack’s new favorite place in the hab. Spinwards of the village, the rriksti had repurposed some of their flat-panel shacks to build an artificial hill. It was hollow. Underneath: a cave crammed with edible fungus and apé tanks. Up top: another fungus, as hard as rubber, which covered the ‘ground’ like moss. The rriksti liked to eat it and Jack liked to sit on it. He looked up at the rips in the upholstery filters, shining like stars, and his heart swelled with pride. He loved his ship, and he loved Grigory and Linda and Koichi for getting here, and he even loved the dysfunctional space agencies of Earth, which had organized this miracle.

  Grigory got them all arranged in a circle, as if they were sitting in a meeting room, rather than on a carpet of alien fungus in a spaceship.

  “We,” he said, “are humanity’s last best hope.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Grigory Nikolov was a barrel-chested cosmonaut in his fifties. He sported one of those moustaches that only old-school Russians could carry off. He also seemed to be completely immune to self-consciousness or embarrassment. In a quasi-oratorical voice, he intoned, “Only we can save the human race from annihilation.” He prodded Jack’s knee, holding his gaze. “Only this ship can do it.” Prod. “Only you can.”

  Jack scooted back, averse to being prodded, and sensing a set-up. “Well, first of all it’s nice to know that the threat’s being taken seriously. We’ve been screaming about it for the last year and a half. It has felt sometimes as if no one’s listening. So—good to know that our warnings have been heard.”

  “The level of cheerleading for the squids in the media is just unreal,” Linda said. Her mouth twisted as if she’d tasted something sour. She gazed down at the rriksti village. Angular silhouettes flickered in and out of the dimly lit doors. Jack could smell suizh toasting on jury-rigged hot plates, and hear insects popping in the microwave.

  Koichi said, “So it’s really just us now. The space agencies. People on the inside of the SoD project. We know what happened to you. We have failed to get the truth out.”

  Linda said, “Thank God a few folks in government appreciate the threat.” She smiled at Skyler. “Your guys have kept the money flowing, for which many thanks.”

  Skyler’s face wore the Fed mask Jack hadn’t seen for many months. “I guess there wasn’t enough money to put a radio on that thing?”

  “Oh God,” Linda said, “yeah. Yeesh. The thinking was, better safe than sorry. Know what I mean?”

  Jack dropped his gaze to his ankles, hoping to hide his dubiety. ‘Better safe than sorry’ was so illogical, he could almost accept it as an example of NASA’s typically excessive caution. He resisted the suspicions returning to roost in his mind again, but queasiness settled in as he faced the undeniable fact that Grigory, Linda, and Koichi were lying to them. So much for old times’ sake.

  “So as I say, this is our last chance to save our species.” Grigory’s keen eyes, under heavy gray eyebrows, peered into the gloom, and then returned to Jack. “Those railguns still work, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. And the … secret munitions?”

  Evidently not such a secret anymore. “Yes, we still have three plutonium rounds.”

  “Good,” Grigory repeated. “Now please listen carefully. We are to fly the SoD to the moon.”

  Jack interrupted. “Earth’s moon?”

  “Of course.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “To save humanity!” Linda said.

  “CELL is our last hope,” Grigory said.

  “You must be joking. The Earth Party’s vanity project?”

  “It’s an ark,” Koichi said. “It can preserve the human species. That’s our primary goal—our only goal. Nothing else matters.”

  Jack seriously wondered if they were pulling his leg, until he saw the fiery determination in Koichi’s eyes. The Japanese astronaut always had given 200% to achieving his goals. He was serious about this. So were Grigory and Linda.

  Jack shook his head, still more incredulous than angry. Objections crowded his mind, creating a traffic jam on the way to his mouth. He settled for saying, “You’re acting as if we’ve already lost. We haven’t.”

  Grigory said, “And you think you can win?” His indulgent smile pricked Jack’s pride. “You can defeat the Lightbringer all by yourself, maybe?”

  Jack was about to launch into a explanation of why he believed he could do exactly that, when they were interrupted by rriksti flooding onto the hill and sitting down to eat. At first the interruption annoyed Jack. But after a moment he realized it was just what he needed: a reminder of the good turn the Victory crew had already done the SoD, and its passengers.

  Bowls brimmed with rubbery chunks and greasy slabs, dollops of gelatinous pudding, mountains of crispy seed-pods, and what looked like black p
opcorn, all flavored with heavy metals from the Victory. This was the first really nourishing meal the rriksti had had in years, and it warmed Jack’s heart to see them eat. Grigory mustered his courage to try a piece of ‘popcorn.’ Feeling mischievous, Jack bided his time before telling him that it was actually a microwaved genetically engineered poop-eating insect.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “Here comes Giles with something for us. Ratatouille, if I’m not mistaken.” He stage-whispered, “It’s the only thing he knows how to cook.”

  The party grew rowdy as the krak flowed. Scraping the last chunks of ratatouille out of his bowl, Jack watched Grigory, Koichi, and Linda pick at their own food. Their small talk had dried up. Their eyes flickered in every direction at once, and they froze every time a rriksti approached them, although it was only ever to say thank you. Jack didn’t feel the least bit bad for them. He’d been thrown in at the deep end, and learned to cope; they could, too.

  Out of sight in the jungle, the band started to play. They’d designed an amp for Skyler’s guitar with a radio oscillator that transposed its notes into the rriksti frequencies. The resulting wall of sound evoked Led Zeppelin.

  Jack waded through the coruscating chords, stepping over people sitting on the floor, to get some more krak. He spotted Keelraiser helping itself to microwaved bugs.

  “There you are.” Jack was a bit drunk. “Come and meet the new guys.”

  He introduced Keelraiser as the pilot of the Cloudeater. Grigory, Linda, and Koichi simply stared at the tall, black-haired rriksti as if it came from another planet. Well, it did, of course, but for fuck’s sake. None of us would be here today without Keelraiser. At least treat him like a human being. No, that doesn’t sound right. Oh, fuck it.

  “So, regarding this fly ‘er to the moon scheme,” Jack said to Grigory, tipping some krak from his own cup into the Russian’s. “I have always thought I’d like to walk in the footsteps of the Apollo astronauts.. But I hope it goes without saying that it’s completely out of the question, under the circumstances.”