by Alex Kings
Yilva's tail went tense and she stared back. She spoke in quiet, measured English, but with a growl underlying every word. “Yes, it was.”
“I'll take them as far as Tethya. No further,” Lanik said. “But that gives us our next problem. We've still got our mission: Arka. We still haven't found him.”
“We have a couple of drones still watching the dock,” said Moore. “No-one's been there since the fight. Nothing's going on. We haven't seen any other leads. Honestly, sir, it's starting to look like the ship's been abandoned.”
“Except for those Varanids who attacked you,” said Lanik. “I see two possibilities. Either he was intentionally trying to lure you there to kill you – and possibly Hanson. Or that team was just a regular security measure of thugs, and when you killed them, Arka got spooked and hid somewhere else.”
“That would be my assessment, sir.”
Lanik nodded. “Either way, it looks like we've only got one good lead. Those co-ordinates you found.”
The comms chimed. “Miller here. Captain, we have a situation.”
For a second, Agatha was thrown by the message. Then she realised: Yes, of course. It's a navy thing. Lanik's in command, so he gets to be called captain now.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” said Lanik
“Three Albascene ships are preparing to engage.”
Chapter 45: Please Wait
Lanik stepped onto the CIC and up to the command console. “Sit rep?”
“Four ships now. Their kinetics are trained on us, but they're hailing. We have raised shields and prepared firing solutions.”
“Good. Put it through,” said Lanik. He checked a display above the command console, which showed a graphic representation of relative locations of the Albascene ships and the Dauntless. One next to it piped through information about the type of ships harassing them. Rectitude Class – roughly frigate-sized.
“Audio only,” Miller said.
The message came through in a standard synthesised Albascene voice. “On behalf of the Associated Calculations and Contracts Corporation, we ask you to stand down and submit for inspection. You are accused of theft of property totalling 1.2 million credits.”
“This is Captain Lanik of the SAV Dauntless. This is a Solar Alliance Navy vessel. We are not thieves, and we will not stand down.” Lanik muted his microphone, and checked the known information about the ships. According to their transponders, they weren't official ships of the Albascene nation – they were from a private security company. Probably a close partner of AC3.
“If you do not stand down,” the Albascene said, “We are authorised to use deadly force.”
Before responding, Lanik ordered, “Prepare to fire the monopole cannon. Pump enough power in to make sure it's giving off a recognisable signature.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dunn.
Lanik looked over the information on the command console. Normally, any of those Albascene ships would have been a match for the Dauntless by itself, never mind four of them. Add a monopole cannon, however, and he had a significant advantage. On the other hand, it was a course Lanik wanted to avoid if he could. In the time it took to shoot down each of the ships, the others could still inflict damage. Further, he would probably invite further retaliation, forcing him to kill more people, and damage the Dauntless even more.
In short, this could become very messy, very quickly.
Responding to the Albascene ship, he said. “We are too. But as your sensors should tell you, our deadly force is … rather more deadly than yours. Furthermore, I presume you will only be paid if you can get the Petaurs back alive and unharmed, and so even if you can destroy this ship, you will gain nothing from doing so. Finally, attacking us will quickly invite negative attention from both the Solar Navy and the Tethyans. So before you fire the first shot, I ask you to seriously consider the consequences for such an action.”
There was pause for a few seconds. Then the Albascene said, “Please wait.”
“No,” said Lanik. He cut the comms. An initial jump calculation was already prepared as standard. “Mr. Fermi, there's nothing we can gain by staying above Kalbraica. Take us out of here.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Dauntless swung about, accelerated out of orbit, and jumped. The Albascene did nothing to stop them.
Chapter 46: Lies
“The assassin, Eulen, insisted he come with me,” reported Arka. “He fears he can no longer return to his workplace. I'm happy to dispose of him, if that's what you want.” The background showed the clean, angular lines of an Albascene ship.
“No,” said Pierce. “Both of you are welcome here. Excellent work.”
“Thank you,” Arka said, nodding briefly.
When he was gone, Pierce swiped the window away. The leather chair squeaked as he settled back into in. He looked up at Millicent standing beside him. “And when I say, 'excellent work', that applies to you, too.” He smiled warmly. “Without your input, the whole plan may have failed.”
“Thank you, Mr. Pierce,” Millicent quietly.
“Now that problem has been dealt with,” Pierce went on, “We can get back to the issue at hand. The connector artefact. The one in the SIS headquarters on Mars.” He gestured at the tablet to bring up some text and diagrams. “You were right, of course. There's no way we can get into the vault. But there's another way we can get it out. You see … I know a few things about SIS policy. Admirals a higher-ups sometimes let things slip. I happen to know, for instance, about one very foolish policy that the SIS has never repealed.”
“An attack on the headquarters?”
“Yes,” said Pierce. “In the event of a failed attack on the headquarters, the SIS will go into a state of high alert and transfer all its high-level assets into a secret vault some three kilometres below the surface. The admirals used to complain about how risky this policy is, because the assets are vulnerable during the transport stage.”
Millicent looked through the tablet. “Vulnerable” wasn't the word she'd use. The assets could be transported in a triply-armoured shuttle, disguised to look normal on the outside.
“Normally, anything powerful enough to break through the shuttle's armour would also destroy the asset in question,” said Pierce. “But we're talking about an Ancient artefact here. They're tougher than usual. Anyway, here's everything you need to know to put a proper plan together. I've transferred it to your station.”
“Yes, Mr. Pierce.” Millicent made for the door. Halfway there, she stopped. Turning around, she pushed her glasses back up her nose, took a tiny step back towards Pierce, then waited for him notice her.
“Um,” she began.
“What is it?”
“Now we have people in the Solar System … there's … Emily.”
Pierce looked at her and held her gaze silently for a few seconds. In his eyes she saw warmth, a little sadness, and just a tinge of disappointment. That alone seemed to tell her she'd made a mistake.
“Millicent, my dear,” he said. “I know how important Emily is to you. And I promise you, when this is over, you will be reunited with her. But right now, between dealing with the Dauntless and obtaining to connector artefact, we simply don't have the resources. Do you understand?
She nodded.
“Now please do as I ask. The sooner we accomplish this, the sooner you will be reunited with her.”
“Yes, Mr. Pierce,” she said, her voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper. She turned and hurried out of his office.
As usual, she put the issue out of her mind as she set to work. Sitting in front of her own desk by Pierce's office, she pulled up a list of available contacts on Mars, plus those elsewhere in the Solar System who could be moved in on short notice. She ran through some ideas of how to destroy a triply-armoured shuttle, how to get the connector artefact off Mars, how to …
She stopped suddenly. There was that feeling again: A surge of anxiety, a paralysing realisation of how much her life had changed in the past few months.
She'd started at as – what? Just a student looking for a decent job. A little brighter than average, but nothing special. Then there was the accident. Emily. Shooting up the career ladder at IL. And now, somehow, here she was, labelled a traitor, manipulating Alliance Navy captains, and planning a heist on the Solar Intelligence Service.
How had that happened? The sheer amount of change, the total displacement was almost too much to comprehend, and appeared instead as waves of anxiety.
She took off her glasses and pressed the heels of her palms against her closed eyes.
The feeling passed. And as it did, it came with a new realisation: She was more capable than she had previously thought. It was her idea to distract the Dauntless, after all. And on top of this, she was the one planning all this, making it all work. Since Mr. Bell had died, she'd taken on his duties too.
In fact, she realised, Mr. Pierce wasn't the only one who knew how many – or few – resources they had. A moment later, she was calling up lists of ships and contacts and available employees.
Six dreadnoughts off to attack the Dauntless. Possibly overkill, but still, take it as necessary. Then, the decoy station and ship. The people she needed for the Mars heist. Those assigned to protect them. Those watching Earth for signs of trouble.
Slowly, she saw the truth. Even with those going to the Dauntless and Mars, they had plenty of resources. She could deploy the people necessary to get Emily back right now, if she wanted to.
Pierce had lied to her.
Chapter 47: Figurehead
Taking the Petaurs back to Tethya would add another three days to their journey. Lanik, carefully weighing up the risks of carrying the Petaurs against the risk of running out of time, decided the only course of action was to take them along to Moore's co-ordinates.
The trip took a little over fifteen hours. It was overcrowded, occasionally overheated as the life-support systems strained, but manageable. The Petaurs waited and slept wherever there was space and they weren't in the way. The crew had kept the ship going in much worse conditions, and Lanik trusted they would manage now.
He'd contacted the Alliance and the Tethyans before starting out. In response, the Tethyans had sent out two battleships: one to look over Kalbraica, and one to follow the Dauntless. But they wouldn't be on the scene for several hours yet. For the moment, at least, the Dauntless was alone.
*
Yilva slipped into Vyren's quarters. There were about a dozen Petaurs here alone, still in their white prison gowns, hanging from the ceiling or curled up on the floor. To her sensitive nose, it reeked of them – though the smell of Petaurs was nowhere near as bad as the smell of humans.
The faint rustle of conversation vanished as soon as she entered. Her tailed tensed, and she gave them all a shy smile. Nearly all the Petaurs had thanked her. That was fine. But the continuous admiration was starting to feel a little awkward. She'd heard some of them speak of her as a saviour – not just for them, but all the Petaurs. She was turning into a figurehead for Petaur revolt.
But she wasn't sure she deserved it. She was just a technician, she told herself. All she'd done was run away from mortal danger, then been saved a few times by humans. Hardly the hero they wanted her to be. She hadn't even managed to save them all – six had died or been recaptured, including Viache.
But as she passed by the Petaurs she kept smiling for them. They were in the same place she had been when she first escaped: Their lives turned upside-down, their futures uncertain. They needed hope, not her own self-doubt.
She moved between them to the water's edge where she caught sight of Vyren in the pool. In one smooth motion she jumped, flipped belly-up, grabbed the girders in the ceiling, and scrambled along them until she was directly above Vyren. For privacy's sake, she still had her comms attached: Vyren's synthesised voice could be transmitted directly to her earphones, and she could subvocalise her responses.
“Yilva!” said Vyren. “How are you holding up? Any news on Hanson?”
“Doctor Sorrel says he is in critical condition, but stable for the moment. I do not know what that means but I suppose it's better than being dead!” she said.
“Yes,” said Vyren.
“I … There was no chance to talk to you properly.”
“There has been a lot going on.”
“Yes. Anyway, I … I wanted to to say thank you for helping.”
Vyren's chromatophores shifted colour, showing an emotional signal equivalent to a human's sheepish smile. “You should not thank me. I should apologise for waiting as long as I did. I always said the Tethyan's problem is their arrogance. We say we guide them … and we do, to a degree. But we're rarely interested in them as people. But when it's a friend suffering, it's harder to ignore the problem.”
Yilva stared down at him. She reached out and took one of Vyren's tentacles. “Well … thank you anyway,” she said.
She paused for a moment, looked out over the Petaurs, some of whom were watching her talk with Vyren even though they couldn't hear. Then she began to tell Vyren about her worries, her self-doubt, and her general lack of heroism.
Vyren listened silently. When she'd finished, he said, “Yilva, I respect your intelligence a great deal. But here you are being stupid. Yes, Hanson saved you. But you saved him, and everyone else. At least that is what I am told: You stopped the Ancient ship attacking Tethya. That is true, isn't it?”
“W-well, yes. But –”
“And it was your decision to save all of these Petaurs. They are right to admire you. You shouldn't let modesty get in the way of a chance to change the world for the better.”
Yilva looked at the Petaurs again. She wasn't sure what to say.
*
Agatha spent as long as she could fixing Mr. Shooty: Taking the gun apart, replacing the damaged coils, checking the batteries, re-calibrating the sighting, and finally polishing the whole thing. “This is the gun I'm going to kill Eulen with.”
Srak, who had watched in her silence, patted the back gently and said, “Good luck with that, kid.”
When the gun was definitely fixed, Agatha dug out her old throwing knives. She hadn't needed them for years. Still, she settled on the far side of the room and used her mattress as suitably impale-able target practice.
At last, she got up and went to the sickbay.
Sorrel, with a sigh, let her in, and went back to his work at the computer.
Hanson was lying on the far bed, still unconscious, his waist wrapped in some medical smart matter, doing whatever it did to keep him alive. Stop blood loss, she supposed. Stimulated tissue regeneration. Something like that.
“You're an idiot,” she told him. “A complete bloody idiot!” She glared down at him. “I should punch you! But I guess that would be unsporting …”
“And I'd kick you out,” Sorrel said loudly without looking up from his work.
Agatha sat by the side of the bed. Her usual comfort lay in imagining the worst-case scenario, and planning how to deal with it. So, she thought, without Hanson, they still had a good team: Lanik, Moore, Yilva, herself and Srak. Even Vyren, now. They could still win this even if Hanson died …
This time, the thought was no comfort. She started at Hanson for a little longer, then stood. “No,” she muttered to herself. “I'm the idiot. I should've learned by now. Caring about people is shit.”
She stormed out of the sickbay while Sorrel grunted and shook his head.
Back in their quarters, she found Srak waiting for her. Without saying anything, he pulled her into a hug.
*
On the final leg of the journey, the Dauntless jumped in to a reconnaissance stop six light-hours away from the star. Through the long-range telescopes, they scanned the area.
The system was almost entirely empty. No planets, no asteroids, no dust. Just a single weakly-glowing red dwarf.
And a facility in orbit.
It wasn't much to look at: One of the small, mass-produced space stations, in the shape of a sh
allow bowl. About three hundred metres across, three storeys high in the middle. Artificial gravity rather than rotation. Its surface was covered in antennae and telescopes.
There was a frigate docked on one side. Rapier Class – the same as the Dauntless. It was slightly longer than the space station's diameter.
For half an hour the Dauntless just sat and watched the space station and the nameless ship. In the CIC, Lanik alternated between going through the telemetry and planning their next move.
The station was active. The radiators gave off enough waste heat to show the inside was warmed to room temperature, and the hull gave off regular lidar pulses, scanning the surroundings. But aside from that, there was no sign of life. Nothing docked, no signals were sent.
So what was it? What should they do?
Watching it on the display, Lanik weighed up the options. It was suspicious, yes.
They could wait for backup. That was Lanik's natural instinct: Do things properly, as cautiously as need be. But that was still hours away, by which time the light from their jump-in would have reached the station.
On the other hand, they could dive right in. That's what Hanson would do. They couldn't hide, but with the Dauntless's upgraded weapons, any battle would be decisively in their favour.
Add to that the risk of waiting too long …
“Action stations!” he said. “I want us in full combat readiness.”
“Action station, action stations,” Miller said through her microphone.
“Prepare to jump,” ordered Lanik.
Chapter 48: Hidden for Fifty-Five Thousand Years
The more Serafin talked to Vlad, the more the Black Cat learned about the language, and the better its translations became. Vlad himself seemed to become more open, more accepting of her presence.
