“They might not have had a choice,” Brockett said. “Think about social insects and swarming behavior.”
“You mean there’s a rival queen in the flock?” Tolvern asked.
The science officer pointed to the array of feathers he’d laid out for study under the microscope. Some were drab, others had color at the tips only, and others were brilliant scarlet, turquoise, or emerald green, like macaw feathers, only larger.
“This is a drone feather,” Brockett said, pointing to the smallest, drabbest feather. Then he pointed to the largest, most brilliantly colored feather. “This belongs to a queen. What are all the rest of these? Sub-castes, I assume. But it seems that some of them are in transition.
“So maybe they don’t have full control of the process,” he continued. “Periodically, some sort of struggle within the flock splits off part of a force as a rival queen arises. That may have happened during an inopportune moment in the fight.”
“Inopportune from the buzzards’ perspective,” Tolvern said. “Not from ours. It was one of the few ‘opportune’ things to happen to us lately.”
“That would explain why there’s no single armada of harvester ships,” Drake said. “I’d assumed they were like the battleships of the fleet, with a grisly, temple-slaughterhouse element to them. But maybe each harvester belongs to a different flock, a rival of all the others. Maybe we’ll never have to face them all.”
That sounded like wishful thinking. There was a whole lot of speculation going on in this conversation, and they obviously didn’t have all the answers yet. Tolvern wasn’t sure that was even possible. There might not be an ultimate answer.
“One other theory,” Brockett said. “What if the harvesting changes the chemical composition of the flock? Once they start killing, some combination of status and resource availability forces change. The flock grows, and then a split happens organically.”
“Seems like something you’d want to control if you were the buzzards,” Tolvern said, “and you were perpetually locked in life and death struggles with alien races.”
Drake nodded. “Hence, the genetic manipulation.”
“But you can only break so far from biology,” Brockett said. “The size of the human brain is partly limited by the width of a woman’s pelvis. The spinal column is a clear evolutionary hack in all vertebrate species, and worse in humans thanks to recent bipedalism. The upright position has cursed us with all manner of back pain. The Hroom underwent a similar change in posture in their evolutionary history, but a little bit of luck in skeletal structure, and they face no such issues.
“My point is that whatever social structure evolved within the Apex flocks is now baked in, no matter how much they manipulate their genes.”
They had veered off topic, and as fascinating as the subject was, it was almost time for Tolvern and Drake to go their separate ways. She had one final question.
“Any guesses why Megat and Djikstra might have thrown in their lot with the aliens?”
He shook his head. “I can’t believe they would do such a thing.”
“Some biological reason? Anything at all?” Tolvern pressed.
“When is the last time a deer cooperated with a wolf?” Brockett asked. “There must be some other explanation for what we saw or thought we saw.”
It was similar to Li’s position, and Tolvern was inclined to believe him and write off the two fugitives once and for all. Forget this whole mission to Samborondón.
Tolvern and Drake left the science lab, stopping once they were alone in the corridor.
“I might be wrong about Megat and Djikstra,” Drake said, “but I’m still sending you to Samborondón.”
“I understand. I don’t like leaving, but I don’t like flying Blackbeard when she’s all beat up, either. Get her back in fighting trim, and I’ll feel a whole lot better. May as well hunt down those two idiots while I’m at it.”
“And it gets the general back into Hroom territory to recruit his fleet.” Drake hesitated. “It’s not that I wouldn’t rather have you with me.”
“I know that, sir.”
“Listen, Jess,” Drake said. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.”
Tolvern caught her breath. Last time he’d used her Christian name, they’d been standing together after Malthorne’s execution for treason. Something had passed between the two friends, admission from Drake that he knew of Tolvern’s romantic interest. And shockingly, that he was not entirely disinterested himself. He’d done so with his typical Drake reserve, which left her in greater turmoil than ever.
“I’m wondering if you’ve been thinking about the same thing,” he said.
“That is difficult to say,” she said cautiously. Her mouth was dry. “It depends on what exactly you mean, James.” She liked the way his name tasted as it left her lips.
Drake opened his mouth to say something, then took a step back when one of the crew rounded the corner, walking toward them. Tolvern realized just how close he’d been standing to her. Close enough to lean in and kiss, as a matter of fact.
She cursed silently as she saw that it was Lieutenant Capp. No doubt the other woman had seen the admiral step back, and there would be teasing down the line of the kind that only Capp could get away with.
More importantly, the moment with Drake was gone.
“There you are, Admiral,” Capp said. “I been trying to get through. Manx just called from Dreadnought. All systems are checked out and your fleet is ready to go.”
Chapter Ten
HMS Blackbeard limped away from the battle station a few hours later. Tolvern was embarrassed by the condition of her ship, and glad that Drake had already shipped out with the bulk of his fleet so he wouldn’t see her struggling to integrate the new plasma engine while keeping the old one from breaking down. She reminded herself that they’d only arrived at the battle station ten days earlier, and during that time, they’d been forced into combat against the enemy, leaving them more battered than ever.
The crews of Blackbeard and Sentinel 3 had worked around the clock since the battle, using supplies hauled over from the fleet, so the ship was in much better condition than it had been. They’d repaired life support systems and replenished their depleted stores of mines, torpedoes, and missiles, as well as patched up significant damage to the hull.
Two major problems remained. First, shields were at roughly forty percent strength from bow to stern. They had to avoid any fights. Second, the blasted plasma engines, one damaged, the other rebuilt, undersized, and prone to overheating.
By now, Dreadnought and Drake’s other ships were accelerating toward one of the jump points. They had new charts from Commander Li—not exactly fresh, admittedly, but light years better than anything they’d worked with before—and were going to approach the planet of Singapore through the back door. That meant a few extra jumps rather than a direct route.
Tolvern headed in the opposite direction, and General Mose Dryz followed with his six sloops. The Hroom did a few maneuvers, tested their systems, then fell in at a crawling pace while Tolvern struggled with her engines. Six hours after departing the battle station, she was still creeping along at 15,000 miles per hour, and was ready to turn around and slink back for more tests and repairs.
And then engineering figured out an alignment issue with the newer, smaller engine, and unclogged one of the electron beam neutralizers on the second. A little more tinkering, this time with the negative grid on the larger engine, and they were off.
“Acceleration is still slow, Captain,” Smythe said, “but we’ll be able to reach jump speed.”
“And the warp point engine?” Tolvern asked.
“It passed all the tests. It should work.”
And if not, they’d disappear into the void as a stream of subatomic particles, never to be seen again. Theoretically, they might pop up on the other side of the universe, but most likely, they’d simply be dead.
But that didn’t happen, and a few days later
they found themselves recovering from a jump, with the Hroom sloops already pulling back into formation. The Singaporeans called this the Kunlun System, after a volcano on the home world. The exit jump point was close to a red dwarf, and things would get warm. Tolvern figured the risk of ambush was greater than the risk of giving away their position, and had Smythe blast the system with active sensors during the first day of travel to make sure that they wouldn’t stumble into a flock of lances. The system appeared empty, desolate, even.
From Kunlun, they jumped into the Getzus System without incident. This system was inhabited, and the resident Hroom immediately spotted them. Three sloops of war pulled out of orbit from around one of the inner worlds, and were joined by a collection of smaller craft coming out to challenge Blackbeard and the general’s sloops.
General Mose Dryz called over. “They are cultists.”
“You mean the God of Death?”
“Yes, Captain Tolvern. They worship and adore Lyam Kar, and have sworn to fight all humans and any Hroom who would fight by their side.”
“King’s balls,” Capp grumbled. “You’d think them cultists would’ve lost their religion when we smashed up their death fleet.”
“It’s religion, Capp,” Tolvern said. “You wouldn’t expect people to change their beliefs based on the results of one battle, would you?”
“Don’t see why not. That god of theirs didn’t help them none, did he?”
The general hummed deep in his throat. “Do not doubt the existence of our god, Lieutenant Capp. He certainly exists.”
Capp looked ready to say something else, but Tolvern glared her into silence.
“We certainly have the firepower to defeat these cultists,” Mose Dryz continued, “but I would rather have those sloops in my fleet than as my enemies.”
“And how do you propose to persuade them if they’ve sworn to kill us all?” Tolvern asked.
“They might not have identified your ship as of yet. What if you were to veer off and let me speak to them alone? You could wait for me at the jump point.”
“Hmm. How long?”
The general turned and spoke in his hooting language to someone offscreen. “My pilot says we will only lose ten hours if we go meet these cultists.”
But Nyb Pim had apparently run his own calculations on the nav computer and spoke to Tolvern through her com link. “My estimate is thirteen hours of waiting for the general at the jump point, plus whatever time he spends negotiating.”
“Hold on one moment, General.” She cut audio to address her pilot. “Can we delay and still catch the fugitives before they reach Samborondón?”
“I am running calculations now.” A minute later Nyb Pim came back with the answer. “I estimate even odds. If we don’t, we’ll arrive shortly thereafter.”
Tolvern made her decision and connected with the general. “Go ahead. Recruit them if you can, but don’t mix it up if they balk.”
“Mix it up?”
“Don’t do any fighting. Negotiations, only.”
Mose Dryz merely fixed her with a look, then cut the line. She hoped that was agreement.
Blackbeard and the general’s sloops soon went their separate ways. Tolvern’s destination was a jump point in a similar orbit to that of the inhabited planet, but the planet and jump point were on opposite sides of the sun, which took Blackbeard far from the hostile sloops. It was close enough, however, for Mose Dryz to rendezvous when he was done negotiating with the cultists.
Eighteen hours later, Tolvern came onto the bridge intending to give the order to decelerate as they approached the jump point, since they weren’t going through yet. The others were staring at a small ship on the viewscreen.
“Is that our target?”
Capp flashed a triumphant smile. “Aye, Cap’n. We caught them bastards.”
“So soon. I didn’t expect it.”
Nyb Pim hummed. “They must have poor charts. If they were forced to wander the system looking for the jump point, that would explain their delay in jumping to safety.”
“And a two-man crew,” Tolvern said. “Sleep must be hard to come by. Are we going to catch them in time?”
“They’re nine hours from the jump,” Smythe said from the tech console. “We’re thirteen hours out ourselves.”
“So we can almost grab them before they make it through,” Tolvern said. “But not quite.”
“It ain’t as bad as that,” Capp said. “The gunnery says we can fire in five hours. Shove a couple of missiles up their arse and they’ll never make the jump.”
A couple of long-range missiles wouldn’t do much from this distance against a real enemy. Plenty of time for countermeasures, and a missile with that kind of range was almost all engine, with very little explosive power. But for such a tiny ship it was overkill.
“Tempting,” Tolvern said, “but our orders are to take them prisoner, not kill them.”
“So we follow them through?” Capp said. “Grab ’em on the other side?”
“How is the general getting on?”
“Still negotiating, apparently,” Smythe said. “The two sides have been standing off a pace from each other for six or seven hours now. Want me to send a subspace?”
“Too risky,” she said. “Apex might be listening.”
And now she had contradictory orders. Drake had told her to stick with the general until Samborondón. He’d also told her to capture Djikstra and Megat. She could wait for Mose Dryz at the rendezvous point and let the fugitives through, figuring she could catch them later, but by now her target probably knew she was chasing. The fugitives might break for a different jump point and escape, and then she’d never see them again.
“Say we jump four hours after they do,” Tolvern said. “Forget the concussion, time to restart, and all of that. Once they’re through, and we’re through, how long until we make up that four-hour head start?”
Nyb Pim returned an answer a moment later. It would take another ten hours of chase time on the other side of the jump point.
“Ten hours out, ten hours back,” Tolvern said. “Add the thirteen hours it will take to reach the jump point in the first place.”
“That will make us late to our rendezvous,” Smythe said.
“But maybe not so late that the general would think we’d left him behind. Pilot, show the chart of whatever is on the other side of that jump.”
Nyb Pim put it on the main viewscreen. It was another Hroom system, which added a complication. She’d rather have the general around to help pick her way through. But worse, there were several jump points, and two were close by. If she waited for the general to arrive before jumping, she’d never grab the fugitives in time. They’d vanish through one of the jump points, and it would be a coin toss which one.
She called down to engineering and explained the situation to Barker. “Any chance we can disable their ship with a missile before they jump?”
“A chance? Sure, and you can also wing a sparrow with a moose rifle,” Barker said. “It just takes a really, really lucky shot. Most likely, you’re on your hands and knees looking for scorched feathers.”
“Thanks, that’s all I need to know. Stand down your missile crew, I won’t risk it.”
Tolvern thought about it for a few minutes before making her decision. Once she’d decided though, she was certain it was the right call.
“Keep engines at full,” she ordered. “We’re chasing them through the jump point.”
#
Tolvern woke up on the floor, having apparently unfastened her restraints after the jump. Probably trying to find the bathroom, she thought, her stomach heaving. Heroic effort kept it down. Her head felt like one of Barker’s people had taken up residence inside her skull, armed with a percussion hammer.
It was her worst jump concussion in months, and as she staggered to her feet, she saw that she was not alone. Smythe and Lomelí slumped over their consoles, Capp sat with her head hanging back, and Nyb Pim whistled in pain. A young man
named Grosbeck had come up from engineering to discuss another tweak to the plasma engines, and lay unconscious in one of the jump seats.
Tolvern’s hands worked over the console, trying to manipulate the viewscreen to run a quick scan of the system. First thing to do was find out if there were more Hroom sloops in the neighborhood. But her fingers were fat and sluggish, and her eyes couldn’t focus well enough to see the touch screen.
Lomelí lifted her head with a groan and started to work. Smythe followed, and one by one, the hard-hit men and women on the bridge came around. Capp was second to last to respond, awakening with a curse.
“Blast it, how much did I drink last night?” she slurred. She leaned over and puked at her feet. When she looked up, she seemed to recognize where she was. “Sorry, Cap’n.”
“Get to work, Lieutenant,” Tolvern said, still trying to get her fingers to cooperate. “Smythe, I need a scan. Pilot, find that ship and plot a course. Grosbeck, get your butt down to engineering where you belong.”
They were all responding with varying degrees of alertness except for Nyb Pim. The pilot was still whistling, and now made a series of incoherent squeaks. The Hroom looked around him, but his eyes didn’t focus.
Dammit, he’s got the trips.
A more severe form of jump concussion, the trips could leave a man—or Hroom—with a permanently scrambled brain. Tolvern’s already-heaving stomach clenched with worry.
“Grosbeck!” she said. “Scratch that. Take Nyb Pim to the sick bay. Quickly, now.”
The man steadied himself and made his way to the pilot’s chair. Capp got up to help. When they reached him, his eyes swiveled back and forth, and he held up a long, bony hand.
“No. I am recovering. Leave me be.”
Tolvern breathed a sigh of relief. What a blow it would have been to lose him. Capp also had a nav chip, and in addition to being the first mate, could serve as subpilot in a pinch, a role she’d played under Drake. Capp was no slouch, but Tolvern needed her best pilot threading their way through these hostile and semi-hostile systems, and that was Nyb Pim.
Dragon Quadrant (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 2) Page 10
