Kantovan Vault (The Spiral Wars Book 3)

by Shepherd,Joel

  “This one,” said Erik, pointing at the unconscious ambassador, now attended by others trying to wake her, “came in here making threats. We are UFS Phoenix. We do not take State Department threats.”

  “Yes,” said the bureaucrat, looking around. None of the guards who’d seen events challenged Erik’s statement. Unpopular with more than just tavalai Fleet, Erik thought.

  “State Department has no authority to be here,” Erik pressed further. “Under the circumstances, State Department as no authority over Phoenix. Tsubarata Central must take full authority. State Department has attempted the assassination of Phoenix’s Captain. Given Phoenix’s poor situation with human Fleet, this raises the possibility of collaboration between human Fleet, and State Department. Treason, against tavalai interests.”

  The bureaucrat considered that, possibly in silent consultation on uplinks with others. Then she clapped her hands at the guards and others, clustered about the fallen and injured State Department tavalai, and all began moving to the exits. For the ambassador, the only one who had not yet reawoken, a stretcher was brought.

  “There will be separation between State Department and UFS Phoenix,” the bureaucrat confirmed. “Tsubarata Central now has authority in the case of your ship, and your crew. You have been given a pond, Captain Debogande. Do not mistake it for an ocean.”

  “A wise decision,” Erik agreed. “Phoenix has no objection to Tsubarata authority.” The bureaucrat gave him a wary look, and moved off to supervise the undignified State Department withdrawal.

  Erik watched them leave, then waved his crew back to Private Ito’s bed. Ito was still in it, having been unable to unhook himself from all the tubes and cords in time to make a difference. “Next time give me warning,” he told them all, reattaching the one cord he’d managed to pull in his efforts to get into the fight.

  Erik gathered them about Ito’s bed, tapping behind his ear, a sign to uplink. “Okay,” he formulated silently, unheard by anyone else in the room. “They’ve got Hiro. Tavalai don’t torture much, but State Department might make a special exception in his case. Phoenix, do you hear?”

  “We hear, Captain,” came Shahaim’s reply. “It doesn’t sound like we can help, we’re all locked down here. Tsubarata isn’t allowing anyone on or off, unless Human Quarter can say otherwise?”

  “Human Quarter is also locked down,” came Lieutenant Jalawi’s reply. He was in command of Phoenix's presence in the Tsubarata’s Human Quarter, with Alomaim away. “From what they’re telling us, it’s not just a State Department decision — it’s all the Tsubarata. They don’t want humans moving around.”

  “Captain, Ensign Uno knows a lot of highly classified information about Phoenix’s larger mission,” Styx interjected, pointing out the obvious. “This information cannot be allowed to fall into State Department hands.”

  Dammit Hiro, Erik thought darkly. Even Hiro wasn’t infallible, evidently. Probably he’d been taking risks to ensure the most important part of the mission — the clearance of the descender on Chara — went through okay. But now, they were stuck with this.

  “Captain,” Styx continued. “Hiro had two of my surveillance bugs in his presence. Each is lethally equipped. I can regain contact with them in short bursts. The possibility of this data leak can be neutralised.”

  Erik exhaled hard. “Styx, I think you know Phoenix quite well by now. I think you know what I’ll say.”

  A brief silence from Styx. “I had thought to attempt reason.”

  “I know you have your own reasons to be concerned for the success of this mission,” Erik formulated with what he hoped was a firm tone. “But if you wish to remain a valued member of this crew, you will obey orders and assist in Hiro’s recovery another way.”

  “Sir, recovery?” Alomaim asked, his dark eyes serious on the other side of Ito’s bed, Erik’s handkerchief pressed to his bloody nose. “We can’t move anyone from Phoenix or Human Quarter.”

  “We are not in Phoenix or Human Quarter,” Erik replied with meaning. Alomaim’s eyes widened. “And now we’ve gotten State Department off our back — Tsubarata Central won’t allow them anywhere near us after that little punchup.” New understanding dawned in the marines’ eyes, as they fully grasped the reason why their usually disciplined Captain had started throwing punches at civvies. “Styx, we’re going to need a distraction. It’s chaos here at the moment, it shouldn’t take much. We have to think of a way to get out of here without being stopped, and into the Tsubarata corridors without being identified.”

  “Sir,” Alomaim persisted, “with Scratchy injured there’s just four of us. And with all respect, Captain, you’re not marine-trained. And we have no weapons.”

  “Tsubarata HQ shares a wall with only one other species’ Quarter,” Erik told him.

  Alomaim’s eyes widened further. “The krim!”

  Erik nodded. “And Styx was even hacking Tsubarata blueprints on their floorplans the other day, weren’t you Styx? Just in case we needed the extra access. And she thinks there might still be weapons in the Krim Quarter. Old krim weapons, that they smuggled into their Quarter to defend in case of attack, against all Tsubarata rules. Don’t you Styx?”

  Wide eyes from all the marines now. Save for Ito, who looked frustrated beyond words. “No way you do this without me,” he insisted. “No way.”

  “Quiet, Scratchy,” said Sergeant Brice.

  “Styx?” Erik persisted, after the silence lingered.

  “This policy of sharing all of my information with humans is coming to be bothersome,” Styx complained.

  23

  Trace swung in the acceleration sling as thrust rocked and bounced the weight of her suit. Descent into Kamala’s atmosphere was a simple thing from a passenger’s perspective, with nothing like as many Gs as a typical ride, either from acceleration on ascent, or deceleration on the way down. Instead there was a simple light thrust and a lot of bouncing. She understood that heavy descenders could not just fall free on the way down, as excessive velocity with a sphere into super-pressurised atmosphere would create an enormous low-pressure airpocket in their wake, and destabilise them to the point of tumbling.

  She found it somewhat annoying that of all the circumstances over which she’d established some degree of mental mastery, atmospheric flight was not one of them. The crazy, crushing Gs of FTL space combat were disturbingly difficult to adjust to, but at least they were somewhat consistent and predictable once you did become familiar with them. But atmospheric turbulence was random, and its sudden bumps and lurches reminded her of the frantic evasive manoeuvres a starship pilot made when under fire — always the least pleasant part of that ride. That those bumps and lurches were now being caused by an atmosphere growing steadily thick enough to crush a regular ship like a can, and hot enough to melt lead, did not add to her comfort level. Human brains were a mass of impulsive triggers, and not all hardwired biological instincts, like the lurch of fear at the sensation of falling or sudden, unexplained motion, could be overcome by mere mortals who lacked the time to spend their entire lives in meditation. Trace wondered how the kid was faring, and if he processed such sensations as fear, or merely as experience.

  She went through her usual routine of slow breathing and inward focus, and called up the map of the vault that tavalai Fleet had provided. It was precisely accurate only near the main entrance — the rest became increasingly vague as it went on, though Admiral Janik had insisted that the overall structure was correct. All of it was underground, burrowed into hot rock with only its main, blast-resistant airlock above. That airlock was angled on a downward slope, and had two main parts — the huge, vehicle-entry triple-doored structure that was big enough to admit a shuttle if one had been able to survive the descent, and the smaller, personnel airlock, mounted within a long, reinforced tube alongside the larger entry.

  There was no special key or code required to open those doors — anyone in the security-atrium behind could do it, with access to the controls. Give
n that the guards were all hive-mind sard, by millennia-long arrangement, State Department probably figured that giving one sard the door code was technically the same thing as giving all of them the code. The security-atrium was a small room with a few guards, which tavalai Fleet could swear to because of the few of them who’d been allowed to progress at least that far over the millennia. Behind it was another heavy-security airlock, so that even should the atrium be taken, access further in could be blocked for a time at least. Trace could see the logic, but wasn’t sure of its application. Another secure door there prevented attackers from moving in, but also defenders from moving up and displacing the attackers. Behind those doors, attackers could gain a foothold, and consolidate for the next push.

  “Chenkov, it’s the Major,” she said on near-coms. “Any communication yet from the bridge?”

  “No Major, just the flight profile. Nothing more.” Up on Chara, any internal communications could be monitored by State Department. Down in the atmosphere, powerful transmissions were required to be heard from Chara at all, thanks to the interference of hot gas and electrical storms. But then, as Chenkov had volunteered, it was quite possible that that last physical inspection had planted a listening device aboard. If State Department figured there was something going wrong with one of the descenders, then Kamala’s atmosphere was not thick enough to stop specific guided munitions, and there were several State Department-aligned vessels in close orbit at all times that could deliver them, breaking State Department’s usual ban on armed ships. This big hunk of metal, with all its limitations of manoeuvre, had no chance of dodging those once fired.

  Heavy descenders had no windows. State Department did not just send a location code to the descender’s navcomp — they transmitted a code that effectively enslaved the navcomp into flying only the course that State Department wished. The descender flew an unpredictable route to the point of descent — in this case it had lasted nearly an hour — with many twists and turns thrown in. Without windows, pilots could not even get a visual fix off stars, and Kamala had no visible surface features. Any attempt to use external cameras for star-fixes would also be reported to State Department upon return to Chara on the flight back, as the navcomp code also monitored all internal systems. As a result, descender crews had no idea where they were when descent began. Even personal or improvised independent GPS readers would not work, because alone of nearly every inhabited world in all tavalai space, Kamala had no established GPS network. Beneath these clouds, everyone was blind.

  Trace’s flight profile transmission showed a little less than twenty-five minutes until arrival — a long time to cover just a thirty kilometre descent, but speeds were limited to an average of a hundred kilometres an hour for safety. “Twenty minutes people,” she told her team. “All minds on the job, nearly there.”

  The rumbling of thrust was changing pitch now, thrust-pressure dramatically shifting as the atmosphere thickened. From the spaceship hull, amidst the rumbling and shaking, came an unnerving screech and groan. In spaceship combat, Trace was usually dissatisfied with the limited data-feed that marines received of what was going on outside. In this instance, she was quite happy to remain ignorant.

  The groundcar zoomed out of the tunnel and along the elevated expressway. The road lay upon the lower slope of a tall, red-rock mesa, looming above this part of sprawling Gamesh in sheer cliffs. Dale’s left was the city, an unplanned, teeming mess of buildings until the next high mesa, looming in the distance. Towers sailed past, then expressway exits, the automated controls sitting on what he reckoned was 150 kilometres an hour, when translated from tavalai figures.

  “They’ll be tracking us,” said Petty Officer Kadi with certainty from the opposite seat, having squeezed up there past Sergeant Forrest when Forrest had conceded that Kadi’s need of personal space was more important. “They just need to track back to the mansion, it’s a separate State Department grid but they can track where this vehicle entered the main city grid, and guess which is us. I reckon they’ll be on us in a couple of minutes.”

  “I think it will take longer,” came Jokono’s fatherly advice from another part of Gamesh. “Bureaucratic inertia matters enormously in security concerns, and State Department have demonstrated that they don’t play well with others. They will be reluctant to admit what has just happened, and will try to find us themselves.”

  “Yeah but that’s not going to work!” Kadi exclaimed, excitably. “They can’t run the city traffic grid themselves…”

  “Yes of course,” Jokono said patiently, “but by the time they figure that out, we will be further away. In the meantime, you need to switch cars. There is an underground carpark ahead, I have stolen two vehicles so you can split and divide their attentions, if they manage to trace you past this car change.”

  “And then what?” Forrest said tersely from the crowded rear seat. “We just drive around the city hoping they don’t find us?”

  “If necessary, yes,” said Jokono. “They have no idea which messages we’ve been intercepting on their dish, and will remain ignorant until they recover that encryption module. Once they get it, they’ll learn everything, and destroying it will be nearly as good for them because it’s the only thing keeping me locked into their communications right now. If it goes, they regain control of their systems and find everything.”

  “And once they figure we were talking to Chara, they call up Chara control and tell them to shoot down the Major’s descender,” Dale muttered.

  “What if they guess?” Milek asked, pressed against a door and clearly uncomfortable with this human proximity. “What else could be worth this much trouble from their enemies, except the vault?”

  “Yeah, well they’re not going to shoot down a Fleet-registered descender without proof,” said Dale, as the vehicle took an off-ramp on automatic, slowing to match speeds with the car in front. “We can’t worry about it — our mission is to keep that module out of State Department hands for the next few hours. After that they can have it or destroy it, because the Major will have succeeded and it won’t matter.” Or she’d have failed and died. But Dale wasn’t prepared to countenance that, and besides, betting against Major Thakur was unwise.

  The off-ramp wound down the mesa-side, past forests of dusty apartment towers, then into dark tunnels through shopping complex basements. Again the car changed lanes, took an exit out of the developing highway-trench, then slowed onto an off-ramp and around the back of the shopping complex, joining other cars in a trundling queue for the carpark.

  “Great, could grab a few groceries while we’re here,” said Tong, peering out at the dull concrete monster-building above the spaghetti-sprawl of highways.

  “I used to snatch wallets in places like this,” Reddy remarked. “Good times.”

  “The pride of the marine corps,” his Sergeant said drily.

  “And I’d have snatched your wallet first, Sarge.”

  “You stole?” Milek asked, looking at him coldly. “Why were you not punished?”

  “I was,” Reddy retorted. “They sent me here.” Forrest grinned. “Parren don’t give dumb kids a chance at military redemption?”

  “Redemption, yes,” said Milek, just as coldly. “Sharp steel will redeem.”

  Reddy looked dubious. “Yeah? How?”

  “He means suicide, Spots,” said Dale, as the car pulled onto the carpark ramp. “Dumb parren kids are given a blade and told to kill themselves.”

  Reddy blinked. “Bit harsh,” he offered. Milek looked away in disgust.

  The carpark was very low-tech, as with so many things in Gamesh. Fancy human cities had automated car stackers that used a fraction of the space, but Gamesh built big and dumb with concrete and steel. There were few planning and building regulations on Gamesh, Dale reckoned, and no bureaucrats telling developers to fix their mess. Superficially, he liked the idea, and he’d always felt the biggest human cities fake and overpriced. But these ugly places reminded him too much of his childhood on Kosm
ima, a place he’d been only too happy to escape from, with its worst-of-both-worlds combination of petty bureaucracy and soulless development.

  “These two vehicles here at the end,” said Jokono as the car crawled down rows of parked vehicles. Two cars flashed their lights, and their own vehicle came to a halt.

  Dale looked around, and found this corner of the carpark relatively deserted and dimly lit. “Okay, make it fast,” he said. “Woody and Tricks, you guys are the decoy. Everyone else with me.”

  Forrest looked as though he’d like to argue, but didn’t, as they opened doors and moved low and quickly to the waiting cars. It only took one person to occupy a decoy car, but Dale wasn’t going to send anyone out alone. Forrest was the obvious choice to lead it, being the most experienced marine besides himself, while Tong was resourceful and reliable. Reddy was perhaps more brilliant, but was also prone to lapses, and Dale preferred him near. Kadi carried the encryption module, and was thus the most important of them all, but needed protection, while Milek could be useful in a fight, but could certainly not be left unsupervised.

  The four of them climbed quickly into one car, Forrest and Tong in the other, and Dale found all dash lights alive, the car they’d left already departing as Jokono sent it elsewhere — another decoy option. Dale gave his rifle for Kadi to hold, and pressed a few buttons to get an idea where the manual-to-auto shutoff was…

  “There,” said Kadi, pointing with a tech-geek’s impatience, “on the side. No, not that one, that one. Now calibrate the HUD… no, that’s not it…”

  “Everyone get down!” Reddy said harshly, and they all ducked low in their seats.

  “What is it Spots?” asked Dale, collecting his rifle from Kadi.

  “It’s a fucking drone, it’s come right into the carpark.”

  “Can you get me a visual?”

  “Yeah, hang on.” Dale blinked on his glasses icon, and got a feed from Reddy’s own glasses, as the Private took them off and held them above his chairback, looking out the rear window. A blur of motion, then it came clear as Reddy braced his hand on the chair.