“There are eight enemy ships,” Nyb Pim said. “Will you be able to deceive them all?”
“It’s a long shot,” she admitted, “but we’re down to throwing the dice and hoping for the best. Unless you have a better idea.”
“You know I am not so good at scheming, Captain.”
“I don’t believe that at all. You once schemed yourself onto a slaver ship.”
“That was straightforward. I ate sugar and let it take me. This is deception.”
“Don’t think of it as deception. It’s more like hiding in the shadows. Like camouflage. The Hroom are good at that. They lurk and spring out when you least expect them.”
“I never thought of it that way.”
Tolvern gave orders to change course. Then she sent Smythe back to brainstorm with Lomelí about various schemes and stratagems. She called the gunnery and told Barker what she was thinking. She expected the chief to grumble, maybe urge her to turn around and fight it out, claim his boys could knock eight lances out of the sky. His reaction surprised her.
“Gotta admit that Smythe surprised me with this one,” he said. “More imagination than he usually shows.”
“He’s got plenty of imagination,” she said. “It’s attention he lacks. He’s either on some flight of fancy or he’s down in the weeds, messing around with tech. When he’s on it, he’s good.”
“If you say so.”
“Point is, there’s going to be fighting, and I need you ready. We’re going to make that wrecked-up sloop dance. You’ll need to let loose with everything you’ve got. Make it look like we’re shooting and the sloop is shooting at the same time. I need torpedoes, missiles, Youd mines—”
“I only got six Youds left, Captain.”
“You’ll fire every last one of them.”
“A waste of good ordnance.”
“If by waste you mean dumping a bunch of mines that will never kill anyone, while at the same time letting us slip away to freedom, then yes, I agree. And that’s exactly what a mine is used for, isn’t it? Make the enemy think twice before progressing?”
He grunted. She imagined his thick brows scrunching together and his walrus mustache turning down in a frown as he looked for a flaw in the plan.
“Soon as we’re back with the fleet, I’ll get you more Youds. For now, use them up.”
“All right, then,” he said. “If that’s the scheme, that’s the scheme. Wait, I got an idea. Let me ask Rodriguez something.”
“Make it quick. My tech people are already putting something together.”
“Hold on one second. He’s right here, trying to argue that the new deck plating isn’t a piece of substandard crap. The rest of his work is pretty sloppy, too. Claims he didn’t have time to do it right. But he gave me a couple of goodies I might be able to put to use.”
Tolvern waited impatiently on the com link as he and Rodriguez argued about something in the background. Blackbeard had picked up Rodriguez and about twenty of his workers while fleeing an Apex assault on the Samborondón yards, and it seemed like the Ladino was already coming into conflict with her engineering crew. Tolvern was about to hang up when Barker came back on.
“I guess it’s not all crap. The fellow gave us a couple of new probes, and I think we can put them to use. We toss them out at the right time, they fire up their sensors, and we might be able to make ’em look like warships. Good enough to fool the buzzards, anyway.”
“Perfect. Ten minutes and I’ll make the call for all hands to their stations.” Tolvern glanced at the clock. Capp was probably just drifting off to sleep. “Make it twenty. It’s only a life and death struggle—we may as well take our time.”
#
An hour later, they were getting ready to make their move. The two asteroids, labeled simply X-1 and X-2 on the screen, were straight ahead of them, wobbling as they circled each other in a loose orbit. The first one was about ninety miles long, roughly ovaloid. The second was longer, but only about a third of the mass, as it wasn’t as fat around the middle.
“Where is the dead sloop?” she asked. “Is it closer to the eggplant or the carrot?”
Smythe grinned at this. “The eggplant.”
His fingers moved, and the “X-1” and “X-2” disappeared from the big screen, replaced by “eggplant” and “carrot.”
“May as well make it official,” he said. “And we’re close enough for visual now.” He zoomed in. “See this little dot here?”
“That speck of dust?”
“That’s the sloop.”
The chunk of rock, which had been rather small itself moments earlier, now looked like a planetoid more than an asteroid, at least on the fat end that dominated the screen. The sloop sat off to one side.
“I’m surprised it doesn’t crash into the surface,” Tolvern said. “The eggplant is big enough to have its own gravity, right?”
“Sounds like the eggplants my mum used to serve,” Capp said. “They had their own gravity, too. All greasy and fried.” She made a face.
Smythe was frowning as worked the console. “Run the numbers,” he said to Lomelí. “The captain is right. Those asteroids are big enough to pull down the ship. Why haven’t they?”
“And you’re sure it’s a wreck?” Tolvern asked.
“Has to be. Too much radiation. It’s unsafe. Would kill its crew in a matter of weeks, if not days.”
There was something about the situation that felt wrong. Something that Tolvern didn’t yet understand, and it wasn’t just the strange way the ghost ship was lurking next to the larger asteroid.
They’d been racing toward the asteroids through all of this, and the little speck was growing on the viewscreen. A few million miles behind them, the lances veered at angles away from each other. Getting space so they could jump. Whatever they’d been waiting for, they were ready to fight now, and would soon be at Blackbeard’s throat.
“Here we go,” Tolvern said. “Time to play our games. Capp, warn the gunnery. Smythe, open a general navy channel and point it right at the derelict. We’re going to shout.”
Tolvern had thought about recording a short message, but it would be better to sound spontaneous. They were still a million miles out, which would delay any response and require a strong enough signal that Apex, experts in intercepting and deciphering enemy transmissions, could not help but hear. When the enemy took a look, they’d see the derelict and think it was a live ship.
That was the idea, anyway. She needed to send the message before the lances jumped.
“Channel open, sir,” Smythe said.
“This is Tolvern. We’re bringing friends, as you can see. Let’s give them a nice welcome. Give me Jefferson for fire support. Halifax in the van. Drop missiles on my mark. All Blackbeard weapons are hot. Going to bring her around.”
Halifax and Jefferson were navy destroyers, roughly the size of a Hroom sloop of war, and the size of ship that regularly escorted a large cruiser like Blackbeard. It was enough of a feint to seem believable without sounding like Tolvern were trying to bluff up an entire task force. With any luck, the enemy would see the dead sloop, be unable to identify it, and think that Tolvern was telling the truth. They’d look around for the second destroyer, afraid of an ambush.
“The enemy is decelerating, sir!” Smythe said. “No, wait.”
Two of them were decelerating, anyway. The other six continued on course. Any moment now, they’d jump. Six was more than enough to destroy Blackbeard.
And then the derelict sloop moved. Its engine ignited, and it nosed toward them. Two more sloops swung around the eggplant.
“My God, they’re alive,” Smythe said. “And hailing us.”
“So much for the excess of radiation,” Tolvern said. “Put them up, dammit.”
A year ago, the sight of three sloops of war would have filled Tolvern with fear. Positioned so perfectly for an ambush, the next step would be a charge. Typical Hroom tactics. With all her weapons ready for the lances jumping in from behind,
Blackbeard was in terrible position to fight enemies ahead of her. But General Mose Dryz was on her side now, and these might be his sloops. By God, they’d better be.
A Hroom appeared on the viewscreen. It wasn’t the general, with the pink skin of an eater, but a long-faced Hroom with a deep purple tint. He didn’t wear an iron circlet around his head, like a typical Hroom commander, and his robe was yellow, not white or green. A heavy chain hung around his neck, from which dangled small iron balls decorated with spikes, like some ancient torture device.
Tolvern’s mouth felt dry. Hroom cultists.
“Captain Tolvern,” the Hroom said in Albionish. “You have angered Lyam Kar, and the god of death will have His sacrifice.”
Chapter Three
Mose Dryz’s sugar swoon lasted several minutes, and when it began to fade, he was turning in crazy corkscrews as the ship fell into the gravity well of the small planet. A worried humming, hooting, and whistling came through the com link, gradually resolving into Lenol Tyn’s voice.
“Hold on, sir, I’m sending another skimmer to pull you out.”
“God of Death,” Mose Dryz cursed. “I told you not to use the com. We don’t know who might be listening.”
“Sorry, Lord General. I thought you’d lost control. Did you . . .? Is everything all right?”
“Did I what? Eat sugar? Yes, of course I did. I am an eater. And when the urges are too strong, they must be obeyed. Is this new to you?” He sang this last bit with harsh sarcasm, and the colonel didn’t respond. “Now keep this channel closed or I’ll send you to the priests for twenty stripes.”
Hroom may not lie, but they had no problem with hyperbole. Twenty stripes was an idle threat, and they both knew it. Humiliate an officer like that, and you may as well strip her from the war forces altogether. But the priests would demand some sort of penance for disobeying such a clear order if he reported her, most likely hours of prayer and meditation.
The rush of sugar continued to fade, and Mose Dryz got a better look at the planet as he regained control of the skimmer. It was a watery world with an oxygen-rich atmosphere, but inhospitable to settlement. Too cold and dry for Hroom, too small for humans, whose bones grew weak and brittle if they lived anywhere with less than sixty percent of their standard gravity. But that didn’t mean the planet was free of life.
The atmosphere buffeted the skimmer as it came down. Mose Dryz had no idea where he was going, and by the time he was a hundred thousand feet above the ground, he wondered if he’d be forced to land the craft and wait for orders.
The small ship descended toward a vast desert plain broken by dusty brown mountain ranges running north to south. The valley floors between the ranges were sand and bare rock, but gray-green vegetation capped the mountains. One of the valleys had a large, celestial blue lake that seemed to glow. No visible outlet—it must be briny and sterile. Still, the lake looked like the best target, and he guided the skimmer toward it, thinking to land by its shore and wait for instructions.
No sooner had he made his decision than someone else took control of the skimmer. The ship turned north, the pulse engine flared, and the altitude stabilized at 20,000 feet. He raced north at three thousand miles per hour, and left the desert behind to find himself over a shallow, brackish-looking sea. The sea gave way to plains covered by tall, waving grass even as the ship began to slow and descend.
He was only going a few hundred miles an hour by now, and came over the top of a vast herd of giant grazing beasts, twenty meters tall. The wind blew from the south, and the herd was migrating north, making it look like the giant animals were swimming through waves of a green, living ocean. A collective bellow rose into the air as he passed, tens of thousands of animals all trumpeting their alarm, and the sound was enough to penetrate his ship and rise above the wailing wind that buffeted his canopy. It looked like there was a storm to the north, dark, roiling clouds that ate up the blue sky ahead of him.
The herd vanished, then the grasslands. One moment it was a green, waving sea stretching from horizon to horizon, and the next, a churning mud pit. Machinery the size of buildings chewed up the ground and spat it into huge mounds. Other machinery belched plumes of smoke—this was the origin of the so-called storm he’d noted earlier. Buildings, factories, barracks—all had a temporary, ramshackle appearance, and most of the work appeared to be mechanized, although he saw figures moving about on the ground and in the air.
Mose Dryz’s heart was thumping in his chest by the time the ship finally came down, spewing up dust as it landed on the edge of one of the excavations. He thrust a hand into one of his hip packs and fumbled out a glass sugar vial, desperate to relieve the terror. His fingers were plucking out the stopper before he remembered. He’d already taken sugar, and must carefully control his dose, or he would be lost. It took all of his self-control to return the sugar to his hip pack.
He popped the canopy and took a tentative breath. The air was cold and dry, and carried the bitter tang of burning oil and other chemicals that scratched his throat and lungs. He coughed and spat, then coughed some more. When he looked up, a giant bird stood a few meters away, staring.
The drab feathers on its breast were falling out, and there was something old and tattered in its appearance. Another bird circled overhead before landing nearby. Two more came striding up, and several others winged down from the sky. Soon, nearly two dozen of the giant birds stood in a half-circle in front of him, with the skimmer at his back. All drones.
The first bird squawked, which set off the others, who cawed, shrieked, and clucked. One took a nip at its neighbor, and this brought retaliation. Soon, the birds were tearing at each other’s feathers and pecking at eyeballs.
A scream sounded above them, and a larger bird swooped down. No drab feathers on this one, but scarlet, emerald, and azure, gleaming in the sun. The smaller birds scattered. One got airborne, only to be caught in the big one’s talons. She threw the drone to the ground and tore with beak and talons. The smaller bird didn’t resist, only sat limply as it was ripped to pieces. The others were long gone by the time the grisly business was done.
The brightly colored one squawked. Words sounded in Mose Dryz’s head.
So a Hroom can lie after all.
“Yes, with your words. The poison you put in my head.”
The bird tilted its head back and jeered her response.
The Hroom know all about poisoning their brains, do they not? What I gave you was only building on what your people have known for generations. Sugar. When we exterminate your race, we will only fly you on a course that you have already piloted.
A shiver worked through Mose Dryz’s limbs. He resisted going for a vial of sugar. Did the queen commander know his secret? If she did, then no doubt he’d been summoned here to be consumed.
Come with me.
She turned and stalked away with jerky movements, feathers ruffling. Mose Dryz walked behind her. He didn’t control his legs—they moved as if by some unknown force—but he could feel every step. The gravity was light on this world, and he walked as if jumping across springs. The bird was only as tall as a human, and he found himself looking down at her, wondering what he’d do if she gave him control of his body again. Could he break her neck before she stopped him? Would it be worth it to sacrifice his life to destroy one of their queens? Or would another simply step into her place?
They walked alongside one of the factories, where birds used crawling dozers to push slag into a heap the size of a small mountain. The queen commander lifted into the air to fly over the slag heap, but left Mose Dryz to climb his way up one side and down the other. Slag shifted and crumbled beneath his feet, and on the way down he stumbled. The tumbling slag nearly buried him before he got clear, and he choked on the poisonous dust it kicked up.
The queen led him up a filthy hillside, where he came upon a flattened stretch of ground. In front of him, a pool of shimmering, poisonous-smelling water. To his left, a giant, wire-enclosed encampment. There w
as a Hroom on the inside, looking through, who gave a shout when he saw the general.
Hundreds more Hroom came running from the encampment and pressed their faces against the fencing. A handful of shorter humans jostled through the Hroom to get to the fence. The prisoners were filthy and naked, bony and starving in appearance. The fencing was made of wire coils with sharp edges, and the pressing crowd left some of them screaming as they were shoved into it.
Stand here, the queen told the general. You will see something.
She tilted her head back and shrieked. Several drones had been roaming the exterior perimeter. A little taller than the ones he’d spotted earlier, with a few bright feathers among the drab, they carried guns strapped to their wings that they controlled with their beaks. At the queen’s command, they lifted into the air, swooped over the top of the fence, and came back holding flailing, struggling Hroom and humans.
They tossed the naked prisoners at the feet of the queen, who darted in, slashing. She tore open bellies, groins, and legs, then ignored the disabled, suffering victims while the guards flew back for more prisoners. Mose Dryz stared in horror.
Are you so surprised? I have seen the fishing fleets on your planets. They drag helpless creatures from the depths by the thousands to squirm and suffocate.
“They are animals. We use them for food. These are sentient beings.”
Your species is a race of predators. So is mine. But we stand at the apex of the food chain. As a fish is to you, so Hroom are to the flock.
The guards came back with more victims. Again, the queen slashed and tore until they were wounded and helpless, even as the guards flew off for more. Soon, there were thirty or forty victims moaning, pleading, trying to hold their guts in with one hand and crawl away with the other. The guards stalked through, cocking their heads and searching for something. They hooked their talons into the belly of a slender human man and dragged him out, screaming. They had a brief, screeching conversation with the queen, who then spoke into the general’s mind.
Shattered Sun (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 3) Page 2
