Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3)

by Shepherd,Joel

  20

  Groundcars took Dale’s team through lower Gamesh, then into traffic tunnels beneath the city, then emerged astonishingly into lower caverns, where the Gamesh cave system had been expanded upon, hollowed out and propped up on a colossal scale for many thousands of years. Lit in bright, simulated sunlight, vertical rock walls climbed above industrial buildings and power plants.

  The cars left the main highway, then drove through regions of increasingly grim, rusted steel buildings and chain fences, until they stopped right against a high cave wall. The team of six humans, two parren and one tavalai climbed from the cars, in a small, neglected carpark lit by yellow, flickering bulbs behind an abandoned factory yard. Hauling equipment bags, Dale wondered how a tavalai like Tooganam could bear to live in this place. Not all of Gamesh was as rundown as this, but it seemed an odd location for a former-karasai to choose to spend his retirement. Most tavalai liked water, and green things that grew.

  “Here,” said Tooganam, walking to an old-fashioned manhole in the bitumen, little more than an unsecured iron lid. “Over thousands of years there have been many tunnels and sewers built, to join the undertown’s different caverns. Not all of them are remembered, and with so little government in the free-cities, fewer still are secured.”

  He lifted the heavy lid with a wince that was more the bending than the lifting, and flashed a light inside. Then he gestured the others to follow, and climbed down the inset ladder. When he reached the bottom, Dale found an empty concrete tunnel, with only the faintest trace of water.

  “It’s completely abandoned?” he asked Tooganam, shining his flashlight up both ways. Neither direction showed him an end.

  “It’s used for emergency water runoff,” said Tooganam. “Occasionally it floods.”

  “Occasionally?”

  “Perhaps once in fifty days. For an hour or two. The odds are low.”

  “Comforting. It floods with water? From where?”

  “You will see.”

  They walked for twenty minutes, the tunnel sloping gently down until Dale saw a circle of light at the end. Once there he took a knee far enough back in the shadow that no one outside could see in, and stared out. The tunnel mouth ended a meter above a lake. Much of the immediate view was obscured by lush trees, some flowering with red buds. Past gaps in the foliage, he could see a cavern perhaps five hundred meters wide and several kilometres long, lit with bright, natural-looking light. Its floor was a carpet of greens and yellows, crops and gardens, interspersed with small parks. This central lake ran like a river up the centre of the cavern, providing irrigation for all.

  “There are another fifteen caverns like it,” said Tooganam, admiring the view with affection. “They do not provide all of our food, much is imported from the temperate regions, or grown in less ideal conditions. But this is the best. I’ve spent many years of my life here, working on the machines that make it all grow. My second profession, after the karasai.”

  “Figures,” Dale grunted, indicating for his team to unpack their gear. “It’s good for swimming?”

  “Good for drinking,” Tooganam assured him. “Your main difficulty is that it is so clear, you can be seen. Stick close to the banks, they are vertical, unlike a regular river, and thus deep, and clear of obstacles. They will give you cover.”

  From the gear bags were brought basic scuba gear, small tanks, weight belts, fins and facemasks. All marines and spacers did some basic suit training in water, to simulate systems operation without risking catastrophic decompression when they screwed up. The gear was readily available in Gamesh sports stores — there were some large seas now nearer the planetary poles, some even with flourishing introduced sea life, and tourism was a thing. The newly acquired weapons they put into sealed plastic bags that had been a little harder to buy, but not impossible for a man of such local knowledge as Tooganam.

  “Now one last time,” said Jokono, kneeling by Dale’s side as the Lieutenant tightened the tank and belt over his civvie pants and jacket, and hoped the water was not so cold that he’d freeze on the way. Certainly he did not want to strip down for swimming — the clothes would dry quickly, and he’d need something to wear on the other side of the swim. “The network construct is established, so once you’ve acquired the code module we’ll just need to input, and we’ll have access to the main Gamesh spaceport dish. With the right codes, it will think we’re State Department, and State Department don’t know when the next ID clearance from Chara is due anyway, so they won’t be alarmed when it doesn’t arrive on time. I’ll answer it, send it back positive, and our Chara team will be cleared.”

  “And you’re sure Gamesh network security won’t see your construct working?” Dale asked, testing his facemask with a burst of compressed air.

  Jokono smiled. “Lieutenant, this is our most advanced technology.” Styx, he meant, with others listening. “There is no chance. Once you have the code module, Petty Officer Kadi will input as discussed. Your own coms unit will interrogate it and upload the codes into our network construct.”

  “How can you be sure?” Tooganam asked with a tavalai frown. “Those things are autistic so they can’t be hacked.” Code modules of this sort were used precisely as defence against hacking in an advanced, networked galaxy. Some hacks couldn’t be stopped, so anything accessible from the network was also vulnerable to it. Organisations that dealt with the highest-security codes built autistic modules that lacked the ability to even talk to a network, and had to be plugged in directly, to access their codes. But security for such modules was physical, and what could not be hacked, could always be stolen. If one could get at them.

  “Buddy, this is top secret human technology,” Kadi told Tooganam, with private amusement. Styx had given Phoenix engineers input into new tech that could hack anything, usually in seconds. “Even if State Department realise they’ve been hacked, they won’t be able to reverse the signal, or even figure out who we’ve been talking to, until they’ve recovered that code module.”

  “Don’t let them have it back,” Jokono added sternly. “This entire mission depends on it.”

  “We know,” Kadi assured him, as though he was going to have anything to do with it. He was sealing his AR glasses and their booster unit into tight plastic, along with his newly acquired pistol. His range test scores were actually pretty good, but if shooting range scores made someone a good marine, any number of VR gamers could have joined up and whipped the tavalai in no time. Being well acquainted with the things that did make a good marine, Dale was sticking to the old marine commandment when operating with spacers, that if the spacer ever had to fire his weapon, the marines weren’t doing their job properly.

  Dale put his AR glasses in place, and found the displays working. These were giving him the required direction, and would continue directing him all the way, according to Tooganam’s comprehensive map.

  “Now remember what I told you about the second security gate,” Tooganam pressed. “The locking mechanism is different, it’s a double-prong, not a single. And the sensors are…”

  “Motion sensors rather than heat,” Dale completed, having gone over the plans many times. “We’ve got it, pops.”

  “And you’re sure you can just deactivate them?” Tooganam looked particularly skeptical on this point. The old tavalai had not come down in the last shower. Surely he suspected something strange going on, the way these humans so confidently proposed to blast through some of the best tavalai network security as though it were barely there.

  “I already have access,” Jokono told him confidently. “I just need to signal. Lieutenant Dale won’t need to do a thing.”

  “Phoenix knowledge is strong like the ancients,” added the parren, Milek, also suiting up with the marines. His partner, Golev, would remain behind with Jokono. Dale wasn’t happy about that, but Jokono needed some expert protection, and both Golev and Milek were crazy-skilled at unarmored close-combat. None of the marines could be spared, so the parren got the job. Mi
lek, Dale was sure his team could keep an eye on. But Jokono, alone with only Golev and Tooganam for company, had perhaps the most important job of all — actually intercepting the signal from Chara when it came in, and sending the all important reply, precisely on the allotted time, to coincide with the identical reply from the State Department HQ on the Tsubarata. If he was off by only a little, and the replies did not match, then Chara security would know something was up. And if either Golev or Tooganam proved to be in any way untrustworthy, then Dale didn’t rate Jokono enough of a combatant to do much about it either way.

  As Dale pulled on his oxygen tank, he caught Tooganam looking at him, still wary. Concerned about the two parren, Dale knew. And he wondered how it had happened that he came to trust an old enemy karasai, and guess his thoughts, ahead of all other non-Phoenix personnel in this game. “Be careful,” he told Tooganam, with meaning.

  “And you also,” said Tooganam. “Your escape route will be interesting. Should you need shelter from pursuit, my walls are strong.”

  Tsubarata Central could not sanction activating the elevator shafts through the Human Quarter, given that they were unused for a thousand years and in spectacular violation of safety inspection rules. That left a walk into the Parren Quarter to borrow their elevators — just Erik, Lieutenant Alomaim and his three closest Bravo First Squad marines. Armed tavalai joined them — Tsubarata security, and neutral, owing allegiance to the Pondalganam who had been so accommodating to Phoenix on Ponnai. But owing allegiance to a legal institution did not give Alomaim or Erik any real confidence of their ability in a fight.

  They rode the elevator up to concourse level, and there it opened onto an enormous hall, like a canyon with flags, symbols and balconies on all sides, towering several hundred meters up to a transparent, segmented ceiling, and a view of the rocky planetoid rushing by. All up and down those walls were aliens, perched on balconies, many with cameras, some with drinks, as though gathered to watch the show. Thousands of them, Erik thought as he walked, into the centre of that patterned floor, and more thousands of spectators lining the way. Tavalai security held them back, but their numbers seemed thin, and their weapons more those of polite crowd control than lethal purpose. There were shouts and yells, hoots and clicks.

  “Stay real alert, guys,” came Lieutenant Alomaim’s synthetically formulated voice in Erik’s ears. Erik had broken out the full dress uniform, but the marines wore fatigues with harness, webbing and full pouches. Deprived of weapons or armour, Alomaim’s marines had first aid, technical gear, and even very big flashlights that could be used as clubs. “Captain, we should protest this route. They promised a covered route — this is exposed.”

  “It’s a high exposure event, Lieutenant,” Erik told him. “There’s nothing we can do, we’re not in charge.” Kantovan System media were set up for an important speech, and by no coincidence at all, that speech’s commencement was now precisely the time that the heavy descender from the freighter Ikto was scheduled to touch down on Chara. If they protested now, and caused a delay, they’d miss the only schedule that actually mattered.

  The portable unit in Erik’s pocket felt unnaturally heavy. He’d been touching up the speech most of last night, unable to sleep and spending long hours staring out the habitation rim windows at Konik below. It was ridiculous, of course. The speech was nothing more than a giant distraction to get everyone looking the wrong way while Phoenix stole something. And yet, that did not change the monumental history of the moment. Romki’s list of things not to say had gotten him thinking, and all his old debate-club skills from school had come flooding back.

  He’d thought about telling the non-human galaxy-at-large about the threat of deepynines allied with the alo… but in discussion with the senior officers and Romki, all had agreed that that would have been irresponsibly reckless. One did not cause major foreign upheavals on a whim. Interspecies relations in the Spiral needed to be stable for there to be any peace at all, and that stability would not be helped by Phoenix dropping scary revelations on the unsuspecting leaderships, to say nothing of the unsuspecting populations, of alien races across the Spiral.

  But he did, he’d realised, have many things to say. About how fate and circumstance had brought two great species to a terrible war, who under better fortune might have been good friends. About how humanity should not blame all tavalai for what happened to Earth, but rather the one, deserving faction of tavalai. And about how some old hatreds, no matter how profound, needed to be set aside for the good of all. Humans had always blamed the krim primarily for Earth, but held the tavalai a close and vengeful second. Erik knew that telling many humans to abandon that hatred would be like telling a drowning man to abandon his life-vest… but simple distraction though this speech surely was, it was also an opportunity. And if the alo did turn out to be the mortal threat he suspected they were, then humanity was going to need the tavalai. Someone had to start building those bridges now, and if he had to suffer all the hatred and backlash of his own people to do it — well, given his current circumstance, who could do it better?

  From amidst security and crowds ahead, a familiar, hunched shape emerged — Tua, the sulik administrator. He (Erik was fairly sure) lurched toward them in that awkward, bird-legged gait, small arms clutching a pad and odd-shaped AR glasses on his face, above the breather mask, to hide his eyes in holographic glare.

  “Greetings Captain,” said Erik’s translator past Tua’s multi-toned screech, as the sulik fell in beside him. “There will be procedure on this momentous occasion.”

  “Of course, Tua,” said Erik, forcing calm into his voice. “Will the representative chamber be full?”

  “Assuredly,” said Tua, with a bobbing of that long-necked head. And perhaps a chuckle? “Assuredly yes, all species’ representatives will be there.”

  Just so long as the attention lasts as long as we need to intercept that message from Chara, Erik thought. Hiro was waiting even now, having somehow made his way to a State Department entrance, with Styx’s help. Erik had wanted to know how, but Hiro had declined, suggesting that it was at least theoretically possible that some new twist could see him arrested, and possibly tortured or otherwise coerced. Erik knew Hiro was talking about Lisbeth, and wasn’t prepared to push the point. It was just as likely, he thought, that Hiro simply liked to operate alone and in the dark.

  Tua launched into a description of upcoming formalities, of books to be signed and oaths to be sworn, and of the makeup of the parliament chamber, and who would be seated where. Events would be telecast, of course, and the signal seen by anyone with a viewing screen in this system, and eventually far, far beyond. Hundreds of billions of beings, no doubt. Perhaps a trillion or more, given that many species refused an exact census — an understandable precaution, in a galaxy where total genocides had occurred in the recent past.

  Erik listened with one ear, the other hearing Styx conversing via uplink with Lieutenant Alomaim about things she could see on the marines’ AR glasses, and thinking all the while how he wished he’d been able to let Lisbeth take a look at his speech before he gave it, given how much more recently she’d been in university debating clubs than he…

  “I see a rifle,” Styx said quite calmly and clearly on audio. “Third upper level, right hand side, now being pointed at you.”

  Alomaim hit Erik even as Erik dove himself, to the left given Alomaim was on the right and would inevitably drive him that way… and shots tore the air where he’d been, then screams and people yelling. More shots, and Erik scrambled without Alomaim’s help for the wall, as the sea of spectators split and scattered about him, some falling, though whether hit or taking cover he could not tell. He slammed into an alcove against the wall, Alomaim ahead of him, positioned to take a bullet in his Captain’s stead. There was a lot of shooting, multiple sources and directions now, bullets snapping by and hitting the wall as Erik grabbed Alomaim to pull him back to better cover. Alomaim turned and pinned him against the wall, unmoving until Er
ik slithered sideways to show there was enough cover for both, and the Lieutenant could still position himself between the incoming fire and his Captain.

  The crowds thinned dramatically as people ran, leaving several lying in the hall, some twitching. One of them was Tua, kicking awkwardly in his own blood, trying to rise. Erik wanted to yell at Alomaim that someone had to fetch the gentle alien while there was still a chance to save him, but knew better than to think that Alomain, single-minded in defence of his Captain, would listen.

  A knot of figures against a wall opposite began to shred and flee, as individuals peeled themselves from dubious cover to make a run for it. In their wake, Erik glimpsed a slender figure, more human-looking than most, colourfully robed and raising a weapon at him and Alomaim from directly opposite. A parren, and on this angle, Captain and Lieutenant were both dead. Until Private Ito leaped from the ground alongside and tackled him, ripping the weapon clear and rolling for better leverage. He found it a moment later, too powerful at this range, and broke the parren’s neck with a brutal twist. And was hit by fire from up the hall, then grabbed by Sergeant Brice and hauled to a wall, holding his arm.

  “Styx?” Alomaim was demanding. “What can you see?”

  “Very little from your current position. I could see more, but it would mean revealing myself to their network security.”

  “Don’t do that!” Erik snapped, trying to see as much of the hall as he could past Alomaim’s stubborn position. “Hiro! Hiro, are you listening!”

  “He can hear you,” Styx replied. “I have him on relay, that is safer.”

  “Hiro, go! This is as big a distraction as we’ll get, you have to go now!”

  “He has heard you. He has affirmed.”

  Ahead, a tavalai guard stepped further into the hall to get a good shot, only to be shot himself. Another tavalai stood nearby, blazing fire and refusing to cover, and was shot as well.