by Ian Douglas
At Buchanan’s order, the ponderous carrier began swinging 90 degrees through space, bringing her massive shield cap into line with the enemy battlewagon, which was still nearly a thousand kilometers off.
War Eagles streaked past the turning carrier, vectoring on the approaching enemy vessel.
Damn it, this was going to be close.
Chapter Eighteen
30 June 2405
Trevor Gray
Omega Centauri
1408 hours, TFT
Within the virtual reality unfolding in his brain, Trevor Gray spoke with the Agletsch. “Are . . . are you real?”
“Answering that question requires the answer to a previous question,” the spidery being replied. “What do you mean by ‘real’?”
Gray himself wasn’t sure of the answer to that. Meeting humans within virtual conference rooms could be confusing enough, especially if you didn’t know whether the other person was a personal assistant or a part of the digital reality within which you found yourself. Even a human avatar—the digital representation of the other person—might not be “real,” in terms of what they appeared to be wearing or even how they looked.
“I guess what I mean is . . . are you an organic being, a flesh-and-blood Agletsch somewhere on this ship? Or are you a simulation of some kind?”
“An interesting distinction. I represent a living Agletsch, Thedreh’schul, as I have already mentioned, but the organic Thedreh’schul is not available. I reside within the Sh’daar archives at their operational center at Gahvrahnetch.”
The name meant nothing to Gray, not that he expected the alien to give away anything important in the way of military intelligence. Of more interest was the idea of a Sh’daar archive. What did they store there . . . digitized personalities?
“I learned something about your culture during trade negotiations with your people some seventy gurvedh ago,” the Agletsch continued. She touched the silvery device adhering to her velvety skin just below her four weirdly stalked eyes. “And, of course, I possess a translator allowing you to hear me in your language. I was told that you requested the presence of one of my kind, and was routed here.”
“It didn’t take you long to arrive,” Gray mused. “About three hours. This archive you mention must be pretty close by.”
He was fishing. Any scrap of data, however insignificant, might be useful. Presumably, it had taken an hour and a half for the call to reach the archive, and another hour and a half for the return. That might mean that Gahvrahnetch was one and a half light hours distant . . . within a very nearby star system, or it could refer to that free world he’d glimpsed earlier, before his capture.
Of course, there might be other TRGA cylinders nearby, allowing shortcuts across tens of thousands of light years. If so, the Sh’daar archive might literally be anywhere, even halfway across the galaxy.
And Thedreh’schul said nothing to narrow down the choices.
“My masters wish to know what you are,” she told him. “It is their belief that you are a member of a species they refer to as Nah-voh-grah-nu-greh Trafhyedrefschladreh. That translates as 20,415-carbon-oxygen-water, and describes your species within their encoding system.”
“ ‘Nah-vuh-gruh—’ ”
“Nah-voh-grah-nu-greh Trafhyedrefschladreh. The 20,415th species they have encountered with carbon biochemistry, using oxygen for metabolism and liquid water as a polar solvent and internal transport medium. At least, that is your number in base ten.”
“We call ourselves ‘humans,’ ” Gray said. “Homo sapiens.”
“I know. I recognized your species as soon as we connected. Some fourteen billion of you occupy the third and fourth worlds of a yellow star some nine thousand light-gurvedh distant from here. I have already informed my masters of that fact.” And the alien faded from the simulation.
“Wait!” Gray called. “Wait! Come back!”
The Agletsch reappeared. “My contribution here is concluded.”
“No it isn’t! I want to talk with the Sh’daar!”
“Human, one does not talk with the Sh’daar. One does what one is told, while hoping that no more is demanded of her.”
“They might need you,” he suggested. “If they intend to question me, they’ll need to have someone on hand who understands us. Can speak with us.” Gray hesitated, then decided to take a chance. “They’re scared of us right now, aren’t they?”
“Why do you suggest such a thing?”
“My fleet, my people, they’re getting a bit close for comfort, I would imagine.” By now, the carrier battlegroup would have secured the Texaghu Resch side of the TRGA cylinder. It was even possible that the fleet had come through already, that it was fighting now within just a few thousand kilometers of his prison. If Admiral Koenig had been able to make use of the data on that message drone, he might have figured a way to come through and take out those three fortresses.
And even if he’d not, the fact that the Battlegroup America was now on the other side of the TRGA, seven subjective minutes away, would have to make the Sh’daar a bit nervous. It seemed likely, Gray thought, that they’d wondered who and what he was because humans shouldn’t be here at all. Species 20,415-carbon-oxygen-water had been on the defensive for thirty-eight years, after all, falling back from system after system as the Sh’daar client races had kept pushing. For that species to suddenly show up on the Sh’daar’s doorstep, after winning sharp and unexpected victories at Arcturus and Alphekka . . . yeah, the Sh’daar might very well be scratching their equivalent of heads and questioning whether or not humans could be behind the sudden reversals.
“How did you know that your fleet has arrived in this region of space?” the Agletsch asked.
Score! Gray hadn’t known, but he did now. Admiral Koenig had come through to get him!
Well . . . perhaps the battlegroup hadn’t arrived solely for Gray, but the thrill of the moment set the virtual hairs at the back of his neck standing straight. He realized that he’d felt a lot less lonely when he’d learned that Schiere was a prisoner here as well, that he was not the only human within eighteen thousand light years.
It was even better knowing that the fleet was close by.
“We have our ways,” Gray said. His attempt at being mysterious sounded sophomoric to his own ears, but perhaps it would have a different effect on the aliens.
The virtual image of the Agletsch didn’t move for a long moment, its usually restless stalked eyes motionless, and Gray wondered if it was in fact in conversation with its “masters.” Koenig had come through the tunnel to rescue him and Schiere!
Realistically, Gray knew that it wasn’t that simple. Admiral Koenig would not have risked the entire battlegroup—fifty-eight ships and nearly fifty thousand men and women—for two lost pilots. The very nature of command in war demanded the sacrifice of a few, from time to time, to win the greater success by many.
The logic, however, didn’t matter at the moment. Growing up in the Manhat Ruins, out on the Periphery of the old United States, Gray had learned early and well the lesson that those in authority didn’t much care for individuals, especially when those individuals were cut off from easy access and inconvenient to reach. After rising sea levels and the Fall of Wormwood had turned old New York City, Washington, and a dozen other major cities into partially submerged wilderness areas, the U.S. government had found it easier and cheaper to withdraw from the drowned coastlands and focus dwindling reserves on what was left. The Ruins became havens for outcasts, rebels, gangs, and individuals, outside the reach of civilization and law.
Of course, the human squatties living among the shattered concrete towers above sea-filled canyons had preferred it that way. The less intrusive, the less heavy-handed and demanding the government Authority, the better. If they paid a price for that isolation—lawless gangs, uncertain harvests in the rooftop gardens, no health care, no power grid, no Net for communications or data downloads—it was a price they usually paid willingly in exchange
for freedom. All of them knew that they could come in at any time. All that was required was that they accept the implants, the edentities, the credimplants, the rules and regulations and responsibilities of modern civilization.
Gray himself had deliberately sacrificed his Prim’s freedom to save Angela’s life. As it turned out, he’d sacrificed Angela herself, when the stroke and the medical treatment for the stroke had changed her.
He bit off a curse, turning from the unbidden memory that still burned, raw and flaming. It had been his choice.
The point was that Gray was simply unable to expect that authority in any form would ever come to his rescue. From experience, he’d learned that Admiral Koenig and the other senior officers of the battlegroup did care, that they did their best to live up to the ancient dictum of no person left behind.
It was one thing to know that, and quite another to feel it.
There was something about that train of thought, though, that was nagging at him, something important.
He was aware, of course, that anyone linked into this simulation could follow those of his thoughts that he brought to the point of internal vocalization. There were nanoreceptors, part of the network of implants that linked him with the outside world, in place along the laryngeal nerve that picked up and translated speech signals from the brain. Thinking words was as good as speaking them, so far as his nanoimplant was concerned. His AI was aware of what he subvocalized . . . and so were the creators of this virtual reality. He’d sensed the Agletsch “hearing” his momentary, internal monologue as he’d thought about Angela and life in the Manhat Ruins. There’d been a kind of expectancy, of anticipation as they’d followed his thoughts. Presumably, the Agletsch was passing it all on, with suitable translation, to her Sh’daar masters.
Why would they be interested in that?
“My masters are curious,” the Agletsch said after a moment, still following Gray’s thoughts. “You appear to have been . . . abandoned, yes-no?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You—and those like you—were abandoned by the technological adepts.”
“So?”
“It is possible that you and the Sh’daar masters share something, a common experience. They had not thought that such a thing was possible. They . . . wish to explore this matter with you.”
Thedreh’schul sounded vastly surprised.
CIC
TC/USNA CVS America
Omega Centauri
1409 hours, TFT
“Main batteries fire!” Buchanan commanded.
Koenig felt the lurch, a slight jar, transmitted through the deck of the CIC as the carrier’s twin spinal launch tubes hurled a pair of condensed matter projectiles toward the approaching enemy battleship. Port and starboard launch tubes fired at the same instant, but with slightly different accelerations. This gave the projectiles slightly different muzzle velocities, which in turn allowed different arrival times on target.
The launches were close enough to simultaneous that America felt a single recoil, and powerful enough to jolt the lumbering carrier as she cruised directly toward the enemy behemoth, bow-on, and slow her somewhat. With the target at a range of just over eight hundred kilometers, the starboard projectile would reach the target a fraction of a second before the port, fifty-six seconds after launch.
“Light them up!” Buchanan ordered. “Suppression beams! Everything that will bear!”
America’s forward shield cap blocked the carrier from firing her smaller, turret-mounted barriers directly ahead, but a ring of small lasers mounted around the cap’s perimeter could paint the enemy battleship with coherent ultraviolet light. UV lasers by themselves could not penetrate the enemy vessel’s powerful screens, but they would snap those screens opaque and dazzle any mast-mounted sensors, as well as help America’s tactical department to pick up any warheads coming back the other way. Working in close-linked concert with America’s tactical department, the destroyers Adams and Trumbull closed in as well, firing high-energy lasers and particle-beam weapons.
The idea was to keep the enemy from spotting those approaching projectiles until it was too late to do anything about them. The blunt prow of the approaching ship started to swing aside at the last moment . . . but too little, too late. Just over fifty-six seconds after firing, the first projectile slammed home.
The projectiles were KK warheads, relying on kinetic force alone for their destructive power. At over fourteen thousand meters per second, each warhead carried a devastating punch. The first struck the enemy vessel’s gravitic shields, which shredded the compressed, high-density metal, but no shielding could hold against that much tightly focused force. Energy leaked through—enough to knock out large sections of its shield projector grid and have enough left over to vaporize a crater in the alien vessel’s bow.
An instant later, the second projectile slammed at over fourteen kilometers per second into the huge vessel’s unprotected prow at the same, white-glowing point, plunging through the partially molten crater in her thin outer skin and burrowing deep, deep through her vitals, a high-speed bullet smashing through relatively soft and unprotected internal organs.
The battleship-sized alien vessel staggered and rolled under the impact. Her shields flickered, then fell. The destroyers Trumbull and Adams moved closer, turning their shield caps away from the target in order to allow their turreted laser and particle beam weapons to bear. Krait missiles streaked through the intervening space, and the piercing flash of nuclear detonations began to strobe and flare across the enemy vessel’s hull.
“There go the fighters,” tactical officer Lieutenant Commander Hargrave reported. “They’re vectoring for a close pass.”
Eight fighters—surviving shreds of the Dragonfires, the Impactors, and the Black Lightnings operating together, descended on the broken hulk like hungry piranhas on a crippled cow. Normally, a warship of that size could sweep that many fighters out of the sky without effort, but internal systems had been savaged, including, probably, her tracking and targeting sensors.
The giant was still dangerous, however. The battleship didn’t appear to be armed with the matter-crushing weapons witnessed earlier, but beams of charged particles lashed out with devastating fury.
One of the fighters flared into a dazzling white fireball . . . then another. . . .
Lieutenant Shay Ryan
VFA-44
TRGA, Texaghu Resch System
1411 hours, TFT
The last of the Impactors died in a silent, savage flash of light ahead and to Shay’s right. Lieutenant DeVrye—Shay hadn’t known her, not well—but it hurt like hell when any of the few remaining pilots was vaporized. The enemy battlewagon was badly hurt, but her point defense systems were still operating, still targeting the incoming Confederation fighters. Shay urged her fighter into a series of unpredictable jolts and vector shifts, jinking to throw the enemy shooters off. She wondered if they were flesh and blood over there, trying to lock her into their sights, or if she was facing the implacably cold calculations of a machine.
Fifty kilometers. She was following Lawrence Kuhn in, and Kuhn was zorching in just above the alien’s hull now. “Firing pee-beep!” Kuhn shouted over the tactical net, his voice shrill with adrenaline.
And then the battleship was there, in front of her, expanding in an instant from a dim star to fill her forward screen, enormous and malignant. Shay swept in low across the gray and pitted landscape of the alien vessel’s ravaged body, firing the last of her Gatling KK ammo into the thing, and hammering the wreckage again and again with her PBP-2.
Explosions flashed within the vessel, glimpsed through rents in the ship’s torn hull.
“Explosion of target imminent,” her AI called out.
And then the universe dissolved in blue-white radiance.
CIC
TC/USNA CVS America
Omega Centauri
1412 hours, TFT
“I think she’s about to blow,” Commander Craig said, and
then the alien battleship exploded from inside, geysers of blue-white plasma erupting through weakened portions of her hull, ripping huge chunks of hull metal open, clouds of molten droplets spraying outward as they cooled rapidly to invisibility. In moments, perhaps a third of the giant remained, a ragged chunk off the stern end, trailing wreckage as it slowly rotated in space.
“Some of our people were pretty tight in there,” Wizewski said. “Permission to deploy SARs to that wreckage.”
“How’s the retrieval on the Gurrierre pods coming?” The Pan-European bombardment vessel was a crumpled, lifeless, and highly radioactive hulk, now, but nearby space was filled by the evac pods of personnel who’d managed to get clear before the ship’s singularity had gone rogue.
“Recovery under way, sir. We can leave that to the DinoSARs, and divert some tugs from the Jolly Blacks to pick up our pilots.”
“Do it.”
“Aye, aye, Admiral.”
“Sir,” Hargrave said. “I think you should see this.”
Koenig accepted an in-head link, opening a window created by America’s long-range scanners. There was a planet out there . . . the tiny worldlet detected by Gray’s fighter and designated AIS-1.
And it was showing the wink of two emergency transponder beacons.
Trevor Gray
Omega Centauri
1415 hours, TFT
Gray felt the seismic quake, a distant, shuddering rumble that reached his consciousness even while he was deep within the depths of the simulation. The virtual image of Thedreh’schul shimmered, winked on and off several times, and then vanished, along with the simmed view of the planet’s ice-bound surface. He was again within the confines of his Starhawk, immersed in blackness.
“AI,” he called. “What’s going on?”
“Data is conflicting and uncertain,” the fighter’s software replied. “However, the facility within which we are being held appears to be undergoing extreme gravitic acceleration.”
