by Dan Worth
‘Yes sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘Don’t thank me just yet. This is going to get much worse before it gets better. The Arkari deep range hyperspace monitoring arrays have detected massive exotic energy spikes coming from close to the galactic centre. The Shapers seem to be powering up something, perhaps a weapon of some kind. In any case, it seems that they may have harnessed the power of the black hole at the galactic core to whatever purpose they now pursue.’
‘Personally sir, I’d prefer a straight fight than all this subterfuge. At least I’d be able to look my enemy in the face and know who he was. The thought that Shaper agents could be right among us makes my blood run cold.’
‘Well, we’ve initiated a crash screening program of all our personnel, not just those in Spec Ops. If those bastards are hiding among us, we’ll find them. However, if it does come to a shooting match with the Shapers themselves, I’m not sure what chance we’d stand. That ship that Cox recovered is unlike anything you or I have ever seen before, Admiral, and the Shapers have had longer than the age of the Earth to perfect their arts of war.’
‘True sir, but then they’ve never fought me before,’ she replied, remaining absolutely deadpan. Haines smiled broadly and gave a deep throaty laugh. He began to pack away the data-pad and then paused. He looked thoughtful, as if something had just occurred to him.
‘Michelle, you have family here in San Francisco, don’t you?’ he said in a fatherly tone.
‘Yes sir, I grew up here. My parents still live on the west side of the city.’
‘You should go and see them while you have the chance, before everything goes straight to hell.’
Chapter 33
Isaacs and Anna stepped wearily from the battered yacht, its hull plinking and creaking as it cooled. Anna ducked under the landing gear to inspect the fresh damage to the rear quarter of the ship, then grimaced as she saw the ragged holes punched through the skin of the Jilted Lover. Isaacs joined her and gave a long low whistle when he saw how close they had come to disaster.
‘Shit,’ he spat. ‘A few centimetres deeper and those power cells on the aft port manoeuvring thrusters would have melted straight out of the engine housing. The blowback would have taken out the port engine at least.’
‘No kidding,’ Anna replied. ‘Guess we got lucky this time, huh?’
‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. At least we lost them.’
‘Yeah but it took a while. That damn cruiser managed to follow us through three consecutive jumps. They must be getting better at tracking us.’
‘Depends who ‘they’ are now, doesn’t it? That ship was one of Cox’s in Hadar. Who knows where it’s been or what’s on board?’
‘Well, well,’ said a voice from the far side of the hangar bay. ‘You two lovebirds are back so soon?’
‘Yeah’ said Isaacs. ‘The honeymoon suite at the Venice High Hilton wasn’t quite to our liking so we thought we’d come back to this high quality establishment.’
‘Hey Maria,’ said Anna, ducking out from under the Jilted Lover and seeing the flight-suited woman leaning casually against an ammo gurney. ‘Listen, we found out a few things about what’s going on around here. We need to see The Speaker right away, and we need to get what we found out to Chen.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘That Morgan and Cox are about to start a war.’
‘No shit? Looks like they started with you, huh?’ Maria replied, nodding at the obvious damage to the Jilted Lover. ‘Look, The Speaker’s kind of busy; he has guests. But I guess this is important enough to disturb him with. Come on, let’s go see him.’
They found The Speaker in his chamber with two other Nahabe. The three sarcophagi floated facing one another forming a circle of alien forms. If they were communicating, it was not on any wavelength discernible to human senses. As the three humans entered, the Nahabe all swivelled smoothly in unison to face them.
‘Interruption,’ said one of the newcomers. ‘We asked not to be disturbed.’
‘Protocol must take precedence,’ said the other. ‘The Speaker has not finished welcoming us. The ritual must be completed, formality demands it.’
‘My apologies,’ said Isaacs, his voice not without a hint of sarcasm. ‘But we thought that this was important enough to disturb you with.’ He held out the sheaf of papers that Nikolai had given them. ‘Morgan and Cox are about to start a war. They’ve been shipping in unusually large quantities weapons, ammo and other supplies to the military facilities here in Spica. It’s all here. Read it.’
‘You are sure this is authentic?’ said The Speaker.
‘Yeah we’re sure,’ said Anna. ‘The man who gave us this was arrested shortly afterwards because of it and we barely made it back here in one piece.’
‘I see,’ The Speaker replied. ‘Your courage is, as ever, admirable. My guests agree that your interruption was truly justifiable.’
‘Uh thanks,’ said Isaacs. ‘But just who are these guys?’
‘They represent the Nahabe gun-spheres currently parked outside, the Uncaring Cosmos and the Blessed Nothingness.’
‘Cheerful names,’ Isaacs replied. ‘I take it they lose something in translation. But we just arrived and we saw no ships on our way in.’
‘I assure you that they are there,’ said The Speaker. ‘My government, as a gesture of good faith, has dispatched these assets as a trial exercise, to see if they can usefully render some assistance to us. Success may result in them deploying further vessels to assist us in the war against the Shapers.’
‘Well we need all the help we can get,’ said Maria. ‘Thank you, we appreciate your help,’ she added, addressing the two other Nahabe, who remained silent and impassive. The Speaker meanwhile floated over to Isaacs, took the sheaf of papers from him with a slender manipulator claw and appeared to inspect them for a moment.
‘Yes, most troubling,’ it mused. ‘I will have this sent to our friend Admiral Chen immediately. She must be warned of Morgan’s preparations. I believe now would be a good time to move to the next phase of our plans.’
‘Which is?’ asked Isaacs.
‘We need to ascertain the manner and level of Shaper infection within the ships under Morgan’s command. We should be particularly concerned with those vessels that were present at Centrepoint Station when it momentarily vanished and whether their entire crews, or merely certain officers among them, were infected.’
‘Would those who were not infected remember anything about their little trip?’
‘Probably not. They would have been rendered unconscious for the duration in order that the Shapers could take over the vessels. If they remain themselves they could have no recollection of those lost hours, no matter how long they may have spent on the other side of that wormhole. If they did remember, they would surely have gone mad with terror by now, the repercussions of which would be obvious.’
‘So what do you propose?’
‘That we capture a ship intact and investigate the state of the crew. If they remain sane and… unchanged we shall release them unharmed after educating them as to the current situation. If not…’
‘We shall retain them for study,’ said one of the others. ‘Shaper technology has doubtless moved on since we last encountered them. We need to update our knowledge.’
‘We intend to use your ships as bait, to lure one of the Commonwealth Navy ships away and then we shall intervene to subdue it. We shall then board the vessel and investigate its contents.’
‘That simple, huh?’ said Anna. ‘Seems like it’s us getting shot at again. I’ve had enough of that for one day.’
‘I have a feeling that we’ll be getting used to it,’ said Isaacs. ‘Besides, I think we have the perfect candidate and the perfect bait.’
‘The Casilinum?’ Anna queried.
‘Yeah. She’s still out on her own around the tenth planet trying to follow our trail. I say we give her something to find. I just need to reset the Profit Margin
’s IFF transponders so that it broadcasts its true identity first. They won’t be able to resist chasing us.’
Anna looked at him for a moment.
‘You actually enjoy this shit, don’t you?’ she said.
‘Well… yeah actually. You never feel more alive than when someone’s trying to kill you.’
‘I’ll try and remember that next time.’
The Casilinum moved slowly amid the vast ring of ice and dust that encircled the tenth planet of the Spica system, its sensors and searchlights playing across the myriad surfaces as it searched the last known position of the Jilted Lover. The cruiser was dwarfed by the bulbous orb of the blue-green gas giant Poseidon, whose turbulent cloud tops boiled in striated layers of colour.
Slowly, the Profit Margin edged from behind the limb of the second moon, Santorini, whose volcanic atmosphere had shielded the small sleek craft as it had jumped into position close behind the small body.
From the cockpit of their ship, Isaacs and Anna surveyed the scene, magnified on screen and relayed from the Profit Margin’s sensors. At this distance, Poseidon appeared as a football sized globe in the sky.
‘You’re sure this is going to work Cal?’ said Anna warily. ‘I still can’t pick up any signs of any actual Nahabe ships. They’d better show up.’
‘Well, this was their idea,’ Isaacs replied. ‘So I guess they’ve made their way to somewhere near the rendezvous point. Just wish I knew where.’
‘Any idea how big those gun-spheres are?’
‘Nope, but I am wondering how they’ve managed to completely conceal them. You know I whacked the sensors right up to maximum resolution on the way back out of Port Royal and they didn’t pick up a thing. Okay, well I’m sure we’re about to find out how they did it. Let’s see if the Casilinum takes the bait. I’ll move us in,’ he said and edged the throttle forward, powering the Profit Margin up to three quarters of her full speed.
‘Anita!’ he cried into the ship comm. ‘Power up the dorsal and ventral turrets and prepare to fire when we get closer. You won’t do any damage but this has to look convincing.’
Anita responded excitedly and Isaacs noted the slight power drain as the twin particle beam turrets began to charge.
‘Why did you have to bring her along?’ said Anna, testily. ‘Maria could have handled this.’
‘She needs to get her confidence back, that’s why,’ Isaacs replied. ‘The last time she came out it shook her up pretty badly. I figured she needed to get back in the saddle, so I asked her to come.’
‘Oh.’
‘Not jealous are you?’
‘About your little fling? No, not at all.’
‘Good.’
‘Should I be?’
‘No! Jesus, let me concentrate.’
‘You know, you’re acting like a father figure. I’d say that adds a whole new level of complexity to the situation.’
‘You know I actually need to focus on what I’m doing here?’ Isaacs shot back at her, testily. ‘Okay, I’ll make it look as though we’re headed for one of the gas mining platforms in low orbit…’
‘We have to make this look convincing if they’re going to follow us. Wait…’ she peered at the comms console where a purely text based message had appeared. ‘Okay the Nahabe ships are in position around the twelfth planet’s trailing trojan cluster. No other ships reported in the area. We’re all set.’
‘Good, we need to do this before any other vessels from the inner system can respond.’
‘Won’t Morgan miss an entire cruiser?’
‘He will, but if he doesn’t know what’s happened to it then it doesn’t matter, does it?’
Isaacs initiated a short jump towards the planet, skipping the Profit Margin forward through hyperspace to emerge above the plane of the ring system in an eye-blink. The gas giant now loomed large in front of them, a vast curving wall of churning gases, the glittering broad band of the rings arcing beneath them. The Casilinum now lay a hundred kilometres to port. They ought to be clearly visible to it. Isaacs fired the retros to slow the ship as though they were making for the cloud-tops, whilst Anna punched in the co-ordinates for the next jump.
‘Think they’re gonna go for it?’ said Anna after a tense moment of silence as Poseidon grew imperceptibly larger in the cockpit windows.
‘They will…’
Something chimed in the cockpit.
‘Hey you were right, looks like we’re being scanned,’ Anna commented. ‘They’ve seen us. Yep, she’s headed this way.’
The comm. crackled into life:
‘Vessel Profit Margin, this is the Commonwealth Navy cruiser Casilinum. You are ordered to power down and prepare to be boarded. Failure to do so will result in the use of deadly force.’
‘Oh this is getting old,’ Isaacs commented. ‘You’d think these guys would have thought of some new lines by now.’
‘She’s preparing to jump,’ Anna said. ‘I’m getting energy spikes from the drive.’
Isaacs grunted a response as he suddenly changed course and powered the engines to full throttle, diving down into the rings as the Casilinum suddenly appeared above them, its angular bulk now resting only dozens of metres from where the Profit Margin ought to have been
‘Jesus, that was close!’ Anna yelped. ‘Anita! Make this look realistic. Open fire with everything you’ve got! You won’t even scratch them mind…’
As Anita replied in the affirmative the Profit Margin began to vibrate with the rhythmic pulse of the twin turrets now firing backwards at the cruiser, etching lines of brilliant colour across its shields, but utterly failing to penetrate them.
‘Okay, we’re ready to jump,’ said Anna as the first of the Casilinum’s shots began to batter against the shields.
‘Just a little longer…’ said Isaacs. ‘We can’t look like we pre-planned this…’
‘What!? Are you fucking insane? Jump!’ she cried and as if to emphasise her point a particularly violent impact from the Casilinum’s main gun - which by now had managed to angle downwards to target them - jolted the ship along its length. She looked backwards via the ship’s external cameras and saw the cruiser’s shovel nose coming about. The glow from the aft engine section indicated that the ship was powering towards them at full speed as it brought more of its forward turrets to bear. Anna could see them flashing in the darkness as they blazed away. The Profit Margin lurched at its aft shields were battered by the bombardment.
As they reached the upper edge of the ring Isaacs engaged the jump drive, the dimensional distortion ripples spreading outwards among the dust and debris like a stone hitting a millpond as the Profit Margin disappeared from view. The Casilinum continued on its course and then followed them into hyperspace, its large wake obliterating the smaller ripples of the preceding ship.
Around half an hour later the Profit Margin emerged from its jump at the pre-arrange rendezvous point, having crossed the Spica system to reach the trojan cluster of asteroids trailing the twelfth planet, a purple and blue banded ice giant known as Boreas. The Casilinum, though an older, slightly slower vessel than the Profit Margin, was not far behind, as Isaacs found when his eyes immediately flicked to the display from the hyperspatial sensors on their emergence from the jump and saw the cruiser’s warp wake bearing down on their position. Of the Nahabe however, there was no sign.
‘Shit!’ he swore. ‘Shit, where are they?’
‘They said they’d be here,’ said Anna agitatedly. ‘Cal we have to trust them.’
‘Yeah? Well start punching in the co-ordinates for a jump out of here. That damn cruiser’s almost on top of us!’
As if on cue the Casilinum emerged from its jump a mere five kilometres behind the Profit Margin and immediately began routing power to its engines and weapons systems. A glancing blow lanced out and hammered the aft quadrant of the cutter.
‘God damn it! Where the hell are they?’ Isaacs cried. ‘You know, now would be a good time…’ he muttered as he banked the ship vi
olently away from its present course. Anita, meanwhile, had resumed her duty of doggedly firing away at the advancing warship.
‘Wait,’ said Anna excitedly. ‘Something’s happening.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know exactly, I’m picking up fluctuations on the hyperspatial sensors.’
‘Incoming warp wakes? Please tell me the Nahabe are here.’
‘I think they are but… I think they were here all along.’
As she spoke, two massive craft began to emerge from the hyperdimensional pockets within which they had concealed themselves within space-time like ticks under the skin of an animal. They were massive polyhedral vessels; rough spheres over two kilometres in diameter formed from dozens of angular sections that fitted together in a seemingly haphazard fashion. Like other Nahabe vessels that Anna and Cal had seen, their hulls were a dark metallic green colour which gleamed dully in the sunlight. Emerging either side of the Casilinum, they dwarfed the smaller human vessel.
As Anna watched a strange golden glow began to emanate from the narrow gaps between the hull sections of the two alien vessels, before brilliant blue arcs leapt from them and began to play across the hull of the cruiser. As they did so, the cruiser’s systems appeared to suddenly die. The glow from the engines ceased and all running lights and onboard illumination went out. The two Nahabe ships extended gently glowing fields and gently cradled the captured vessel between them.
‘Captain Isaacs, Captain Favreux. This is the Uncaring Cosmos reporting a successful completion of our mission.’ The voice was machine translated and neutral in tone. It almost sounded as if the speaker were bored.
‘I knew they wouldn’t let us down,’ said Anna.
‘Fucking hell,’ said Isaacs. ‘Talk about leaving it to the last second.’
