Alice learned the names of every crewmember, could sense the Captain - she’d been with him since he first emerged from his formation pod, years before, and was writhing on the deck in front of her captains’ seat. Alice envisioned a spike driving into the Captain’s head, found a directive; “Do not kill the Valents, avoid Alice. Capture Jacob.” The Captain attempted to resist, already in agony, even her mental self-image was writhing in front of her.
Alice had the Geist, she could feel its telepathic connection to the crew, especially the Captain and the First Officer, who was an actual telepath. She could reach him – Lieutenant Harhold – and she took his mind just the same as she did Quan’s, only instead of showing him the horrors she knew, or digital code, she inflicted the will of the Geist she controlled. “Your mind will empty and bleed,” she said, focusing malicious intent on him and the Captain – Sy-Rhea – until she couldn’t feel them anymore.
‘Stop, you’re murdering my crew,’ the Geist pled. It was more afraid than she had ever been, and that was saying something, but not because she might kill it, but because it knew she was growing in strength, learning through telepathic vivisection using it as a tool.
“Show me what you’re hiding,” Alice replied, aware that her lips were moving, tears were running down her face and her hands gripped the edge of her console white-knuckled. It tried to shut her out much harder than before, but she barely held on, staying inside its psyche. “No? Then die.” She opened her eyes and targeted the exact position aboard the ship where she could feel the Geist. “Break cover, all weapons fire on this target.”
As the Clever Dream emerged from behind a collection of dead Order of Eden ships, Alice could feel another Geist, the first female she’d known, graze her mind then retreat rapidly when Alice tried to turn the Geist she’d trapped towards her mentally. Every missile and gun emplacement aboard the Clever Dream fired at the thick armoured plate covering the younger Geist’s habitat. Lewis activated all three of their Prometheus weapons, sending white beams from the front of the ship. Beams that generated antimatter close to the target and pummelled it with highly explosive heat.
Alice felt the Geist struggle and the worst pain she’d ever known struck her from the inside, her vision went black and her body spammed. He was still in her grip, and she delved for one more piece of information. “Where were you born?” she asked, and immediately knew the answer. An image of herself appeared, it was her as her smaller framework self and in a training uniform. It wasn’t from her mind, it was from a classified report the Geist had seen. There were records and predictions from the Victory Machine there, old, but still highlighted as relevant. There was a label attached to her file that read as a warning, declaring her a rogue element. The voice of Hampon drifted through her mind as he narrated a piece of her report; “While many former members of the First Light crew come up in the Victory Machine’s predictions, Alice comes up the most, but little is known. I am warned that when she appears prediction becomes nearly impossible, that she is a true rogue element that disrupts timelines and modifies predicted outcomes. The Victory Machine cannot predict her path. One moment it predicts her death, the next that she becomes an artificial intelligence, and another that she’s a teenage girl - it is utter nonsense - so we have labelled her. We will avoid her when possible, and perhaps capture her one day as a kind of experiment, like holding a hand to a live battery just to satisfy curiosity. A rogue element must be good for something, after all.”
Alice refocused her thoughts and asked; “Who is your master?” She saw him, felt what it was like to be in his presence; Dron. He was a man of logic and hard discipline. He could sense Geists, was trained by Citadel. That was how it worked. Some special people were taken aside, their telepathic potential was explored, and while Dron wasn’t a true telepath, he had potential, and he learned to sense Geists, other telepaths, and became an empath. Alice knew how. The Pariah Geist had a name. It was; “Werner, you’re going to show me what you’re hiding now.” It was suffering from fear, grief at being used to cause the brain deaths of its own captain and first officer, and most of all it was haunted by the thought of failing its people, letting a human take all its power. A realization struck Alice and she put it to use. She had control, its spirit was broken, it was horrible, but there the Geist’s resistance to her had failed. She found the secret. “They’re lying in wait for my father. He’ll be back in the Rega Gain system today, and they’re going to intercept him, kill everyone else except Minh-Chu. The ship they sent is called The Castaway.” Werner the Geist was broken, disgraced with no willpower left. Alice let go. “We have to finish here and get back to the Haven System now. Oh, and please give me something for this headache,” she said as she took the status of the Clever Dream in at a glance.
The Pariah was running, thrusting out of the area as quickly as possible using Order ships as cover. The Clever Dream’s shields were holding under the barrage of the Pariah’s gunnery deck, but barely. “Focus all but our beam weapons on those guns,” Alice said. The enemy’s beam emplacement and rocket launchers were down. “Get closer to her,” Alice said.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Ute replied.
“Any progress on finding our people?” she asked Iruuk
“I’m almost down to scanning for DNA,” he said, running his hand down his nose. “I’m trying… wait! There’s a firefight! Aboard the Sagittarius, two frames forward from the brig there are nine people fighting hand-to-hand. One just got a weapon, and our scans confirm that it’s someone with Yawen’s shape. I’m confirming the rest. There was a scan blocker in place around the brig, we couldn’t see inside before, but now they’re out.”
Alice watched as the Clever Dream caught up to the Pariah, closing to within point nine kilometres. “This is good,” she said, her headache disappearing. “Thank you, Theo,” she offered over her shoulder.
The Prometheus beams burst through the armour plate covering the Geist’s habitat and Alice felt it die. Fear and incredible pain as it was torn apart but it was all at a distance, causing none of the sensations in her. Her head was clear then, and she could feel three Geists keenly, immediately learning their locations. The accumulator system had generated enough antimatter for five torpedoes and she punched her security code in, loading each of them.
“We are re-cloaked,” Lewis announced.
Alice marked the location of all three Citadel ships on the tactical display and focused on it. “I know where they are. I can feel them as clearly as if we were all sitting around a table.”
“Where who are?” Theodore asked.
“The Geists.”
“What?” Iruuk asked. “How?”
“Too many telepaths have been through my head, Fur-Face,” Alice said. “I think it’s like an instinctive defence mechanism, I can just tell where they are.” It happened again, a graze against her mind, and she gnashed her teeth, grabbing at it with her mind. Without letting go, she pointed one of the Prometheus beam weapons in its direction and swept across its shields. Antimatter clashed with the enemy shields, sending a furious plume across it. She targeted the termination point of the Prometheus beam and sent the Javelin torpedoes to track it. They disappeared, cloaked the moment they left the launchers. “Don’t let that ship get away, we have to ruin its cloaking device.”
This was an even younger Geist, full of fear, wriggling to escape, and she let it go. Alice didn’t want to deal with more grief, mortal fear or another struggle. It felt like she was stretched thin, fatigue not far off, but Alice had what she wanted. Their new target was another small destroyer. “Fire everything at it, I want its shields down before those torpedoes hit. Aim for weapons first.” Alice said, targeting all its turrets with a fresh load of Javelin torpedoes and Saber missiles. She shut the antimatter generator systems aboard the Clever Dream down, shunting a small vial into a Javelin torpedo.
They were struck several times on the forward quarter, the full force of the enemy turning on them from the new destroyer, and U
te turned so they were flying parallel. Alice launched her missiles, the guns reached across the space that separated them with lethal rounds going in both directions. Not enough of their missiles were striking, getting detonated by countermeasures. “Suggestions?” Alice asked.
“Wait,” Iruuk said. “We can last long enough to see what your antimatter torpedoes do.”
Alice watched the exchange of fire. The gunnery deck of the destroyer was facing them, whatever they put out to counter that was barely keeping them up. Their own guns were focused on returning fire between catching incoming missiles and torpedoes. Their Saber missiles were getting countered by smaller automatic guns before they could impact. The Prometheus beam weapon she had trained on the ship was slowly defeating its shields but it wasn’t fast enough for her taste. The other two beams didn’t have the charge to be effective yet. Alice estimated that they’d have to hide behind cover within a minute, a minute and a half at the most.
The Javelins loaded with antimatter struck the enemy ship from behind, causing a white flash of light and the complete failure of their cloaking systems. Their shields were still up, but barely. Alice looked to Theodore, who had a worried expression on his face. “Broadcast on all channels please.”
“Aye,” he replied. “Ready.”
“I am Alice Valent, the Rogue Element. I am about to murder another Geist. This will be my second this week. Leave, or I will continue my murder streak,” she nodded at him and he turned the broadcast off.
“A slight exaggeration,” Lewis said.
“Not when we get back home,” Alice said. “I’m going to make sure the Exile Geist’s dead.”
“Three wormhole entry points have opened,” Iruuk said. “I see the profiles of a Zhàn Class Close Combat Carrier, and one of their destroyers departing. The destroyer we’re attacking is also departing.”
Zhàn Class, the same as the Triton. The idea of having to face one made Alice’s palms sweat. “Let it go. Take us to the Sagittarius. We have some people to pick up,” Alice said. She made a mental note to contact Quan and spend time with Oz when she got back. There were plenty of questions for one, and maybe answers for the other bouncing around in her head.
Fifty-Nine
Coming Home
* * *
The excitement of getting home threatened to crowd any other thought out of Jake’s head as he sat at the sciences station, commanding from there. It said something about the older Aucharian military that the main tactical scanning technology was in the sciences station. It seemed to be designed for exploration rather than combat.
Minh-Chu was at the helm with Carnie at his side, cracking his knuckles and stretching his neck. “I hope we can get at least one or two nights off,” he said.
“Oh, man, that would be nice. I have a few things to take care of,” Carnie said.
Liara was in the captain’s seat again, communications routed to her command and control unit. Her comfort in that chair was surprising to Jake and reassuring. She knew Fleet Regulations better than anyone in his crew, had diplomatic training, experience and was an actual lawyer with practice in court in front of arbitration panels as well as juries. That was her old life, and it came with technical knowledge that made his software hacks look primitive.
Was she perfect? Not at all. He wouldn’t seriously put her in command of a starship because she lacked the combat and other emergency situation training along with a number of other important pieces of the puzzle. If she wanted to move up in the Fleet, she’d get the training and experience, he was sure. Jake would stand by and see if she wanted his help, but he had a feeling she’d find her way to what she needed on her own. The best thing he could do was give her opportunities like the one she was taking advantage of at the moment.
The punishment of taking an extra watch on the bridge might have given her a taste for the captain’s seat. It was obvious to Jake that she already felt somewhat comfortable there. “Emerging from altered space in fifteen seconds, Acting Captain,” Minh-Chu called out from the helm.
“How are our final emergence scans looking?” Liara asked.
“Skies are clear,” Jake replied from the sciences station.
Liara leaned in his direction and whispered; “Are you sure you don’t want to be sitting here when we contact Fleet?”
“You’re doing fine,” Jake replied. “We’re in safe space, it’s the perfect time for you to get some experience taking us home. Besides, we wouldn’t be here if you didn’t work on Mary. You deserve a little experience in the chair.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said. “I’ve never been more nervous in my life.”
“Just breathe, run the approach checklist in your head,” Jake noticed that she had the system to space dock list up on her command and control unit. “Oh, and let your crew do the heavy lifting.”
“Okay,” Liara said, squaring herself in the captain’s seat again. “Yes, Sir,” she added.
Jake looked at the scanners as the wormhole degenerated behind them, breaking up into a harmless, momentary energy spike on his display. “Emergence complete,” Jake announced.
“We have Haven Fleet Navnet synchronization,” Noah Lucas announced from the navigation station.
“Sending our status and capture notification to Fleet,” Liara announced as she did the work on her command and control unit. “We won’t have acknowledgement for at least seven minutes, we’re still pretty far from Tamber.”
“Outer system Navnet has sent us an approach course,” Noah said.
“Follow it please, I’m looking forward to tanning and reading up on command theory,” Liara said.
“Hope there’s room on the beach for a bunch of rangers and marines,” Remmy said as he entered the bridge and took a seat with Dimitri at his side. “I plan on getting as much R and R before the ink dries on my transfer papers.”
“Amen,” Dimitri said.
“You’re joining the crew?” Liara asked.
“If the Rangers will let me,” Remmy replied. “I’d rather be on the front lines than dealing with people on the ground on Tamber.”
The ship shuddered and Jake checked the scanners. The front of the ship was fine, there was nothing in their way for millions of kilometres.
“Did we just hit something?” Dimitri asked.
“Hell, no,” Noah said.
“Impact on the dorsal section,” Finn said over Jake’s communicator.
Jake spotted a circular object creating a seal against the outer hull. “Armour up, we have boarders incoming. Minh, get us to the nearest allied ship. Liara, send distress on all channels.”
Several more contacts showed up on the outer hull, points where arms were most likely affixing themselves and Jake activated his full armour.
“Their engines are overpowering us,” Minh-Chu said. “We are slowing. I’ll keep fighting, but there isn’t much point.”
“Set the controls to automatically hold this position,” Jake ordered. “I need everyone with counter-incursion training to help me fight them off.”
“Communications are being jammed,” Liara said.
Jake scanned for the thickest bulkheads near the bridge and saw that the Captain’s Ready Room was also a safe room with support for five people. “Liara, Noah, go to the ready room and lock it with a fleet code.”
“I can fight, Captain,” Noah objected.
“You sure?” Jake asked.
“He’s not,” Minh-Chu said. “Get in there. This isn’t Iora.”
Without further argument, Noah followed Liara into the Captain’s Ready Room and Jake watched the door close.
“They’re cutting through fast,” Finn said through the communicator.
“Find a safe room and get there fast,” Jake told him. “Hunker down until we can get to you.”
“Too late,” Finn said.
“What the hell is that?” asked Sammi through the communicator, her video feed appeared in Jake’s helmet. It was already a retreating firefight, she tossed a gren
ade at the incursion point – a rough cut through the ceiling of main engineering – and watched a large humanoid in heavy custom armour that looked like it was made of blades bat it away. It ignored the explosion, returning fire with a double barrelled heavy rifle that filled the air with loud cracks as it went off.
“Oh, no,” Remmy said. “All squad members, retreat to crew cabin section and get ready to rally. That’s the Beast, the Order’s Prime Knight.”
“They’re opening a wormhole,” Minh-Chu said. “Going to try to disrupt it with our generators.”
“Are you sure it’s him?” Jake asked as he watched Remmy start running.
“One hundred percent,” Remmy replied. “Captain, stay here. It doesn’t make sense for you to put yourself in its way. Seal yourself in, try to get us help.”
“Disrupted their wormhole,” Minh-Chu reported from the helm. “I can’t leave this station unless we want them to drag us away from friendly space.”
“Take all my marines,” Jake said. “I’ll stay here with Minh.”
“Aye, Captain,” Remmy said. “It’s been an honour to serve with you.”
Jake hated the finality of his statement, and a chill ran through him as the heavy bridge security doors closed. “Good hunting.”
Sixty
Extortion
* * *
The Clever Dream moved between much larger Order of Eden warships like a stalking predator. Few of the enemy vessels showed any sign that they were reactivating systems and the ones that did still had cold reactors, minimal life support. “Everything aboard those ships runs on their crappy software,” Iruuk said. “The crews don’t know what they’re doing without the automation.”
“I can confirm that,” Theodore said. “Some of them have managed to get emergency communications working, and what I’m hearing indicates that they may have one person qualified to make their ships operational without software for every five thousand thirty-three people. It’s a training oversight typical of a force that focuses on recruiting rather than properly training their people.”
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 11 Page 39
