Desolator: Book 2 (Stellar Conquest)

by VanDyke, David

  Mirza took a breath, then rattled off orders. “Set up a course to come to relative rest inside New Jove’s orbit. We may need to use the planet tactically. Sound General Quarters. Rig for flank acceleration in fifteen minutes. Everyone into their crash chairs and overload the gravplates five percent.”

  Rick passed the orders via link even as he listened with his ears. It was a skill he had perfected long ago.

  “Get some Marines down to help the engineers, and make sure the new weapon is secured,” Mirza went on, “and inform the Admiral what we are doing and request reinforcements. Everyone to link now, with standard rest protocols. We may have to fly straight into a fight.”

  Rick pressed his lips together in disapproval but did not argue. Linking everyone for such a long time could be dangerous, as the line between reality and virtuality blurred. Not my call, he thought, as he made sure Conquest’s computer would properly schedule and enforce everyone’s unplugged periods.

  Over the next sixteen hours Conquest’s immobilized crew built a linked virtual picture out of the various data feeds it had received. They learned the bogey was definitely nothing like any Meme ship they had ever seen, nor was it human or Hippo. Massing something on the order of five hundred billion tons – twenty times that of Conquest, and twice that of a Meme Guardian – it measured over nine kilometers long and two wide, a flattened cylindrical object with four stubby superstructures, making it vaguely resemble a quadruped creature, rather like a short-nosed alligator with an equally stubby tail.

  With suppressed irritation Captain Mirza learned that Admiral Henrich Absen and the Hippo General Kullorg even now blasted toward Reta on a command courier, and would actually arrive at the rendezvous before they did. Still, if it really was an alien contact, he was happy to have someone of senior rank present.

  Best it did not come to a fight in any case. Mirza had been captain of the cruiser Kolkata until his beloved ship had been turned into a very expensive kinetic missile and slammed into the Meme Guardian of this system. He had no desire to lose another vessel on his watch.

  “Sir, another update,” Johnstone told the captain and bridge crew in linkspace. “Here are pictures from an eyeball we have on a passing comet, relayed back to Temasek.”

  4D graphics filled their minds’ eyes, the magnification of the sensor drone expanding the unidentified vessel into a stately shipwreck, rotating slowly around its long axis in the void. The closer the picture came, the more badly damaged the bogey seemed. Gaping holes in its structure reached deep into its interior, showing the gutted latticework of open decks and broken struts. Energy burns, kinetic strikes, and the distinctive melting of nuclear plasma effects all became clear.

  Captain Mirza let out a sigh of relief, thankfully unheard through the link. “Doesn’t look to be in good shape. Energy readings?”

  “We only have electro-optical right now,” Tanaka answered, “but infrared shows heat sources in several places. It’s not completely dead.”

  “But at least not in any shape for a fight, we can hope. What are Temasek’s and Krugh’s postures?”

  Okuda answered from the helm, “They’ve broken orbit, sowed more static sensor drones, and are falling back toward us. Rendezvous in forty-eight minutes.”

  “What about Flensburg?” The only other capital ship the humans still possessed Mirza knew to be on the other side of the system beyond the orange dwarf star.

  “Three days, more or less.”

  “All right. Once we come to rest, tell the engineers to get that particle cannon working, no excuses. It just went from experimental to operational.”

  ***

  Sergeant Major Jill Repeth, EarthFleet Marines (Reserve Status), dandled her daughter Cassandra on her knee, making baby-talk sounds to delight her. Perhaps strangely for such a seasoned warrior, it bothered her not at all to take her turn at the communal crèche. Some female Marines all but gave up their mandated children to the EarthFleet nurseries, but not Jill.

  Motherhood had changed her, just as every other significant event in her life had changed her…for the better, this time, she thought. Killing hands were now doing something more positive, and the gaps in her emotional armor were wider now. Still always in the background hovered the knowledge that in perhaps thirty years this tiny girl-child, her year-older brother Roger, and their siblings yet unborn might take their places at her side in the long campaign against the Meme. Sadness and pride warred within her, and the warrior in her told the mother once again that no sacrifice was too great to ensure humanity’s survival.

  Sometimes that felt like the truth; more often like a nauseating and very sick joke. Pushing her feelings away once again, she forced herself to think objectively.

  War over interstellar distances created a chess match in extreme slow motion, punctuated by battles over systems. At least that’s what their theory and her limited experience said. Given the vast gulf between stars, even information crawled from stellar island to island hardly faster than did warships. Each battle was an all-or-nothing affair, leaving one combatant in possession of a system and the other driven away or destroyed – and the loser’s forces in other systems none the wiser for many years.

  What a strange way to fight, Jill thought for the umpteenth time as Cassandra burped and spat up a bit of milk. For herself, it meant winning a life-and-death struggle to conquer the Gliese 370 system. If there was any justice in the universe, that victory would bring decades of relative peace.

  She cleaned Cass’s face, folding the goo into a cloth and snagging another with a stretch of her arm.

  Of course Meme warships could show up at any time, but it would be pure horrendous ill fortune, for they would have been, by definition, inbound long before the EarthFleet task force had arrived. If so, Conquest herself, the surviving battleship Flensburg, and a handful of other vessels plus Hippo forces would have to handle it.

  Else they would all be enslaved.

  Believe we have time, Jill instructed herself. Have faith we are here for a purpose, that God would not bring us here just to lose. Of course too, the rain falleth on the just and on the unjust. Snorting at herself as she held her daughter, she embraced the eternal problem: what was divine will, and what was circumstance?

  “Oh, did you make a stinky?” Jill asked to the giggling Cass as her latest bounce gave a decided squish. “Yes you did, yes you did!” Diaper duties pushed aside cosmic thoughts as she carried the baby to a changing table.

  Later, after child-care duties were complete, her other work – what she would have called her real job as a Marine – claimed the rest of her time. Leisure was limited nowadays – she was used to that, after so long in the military. With the Eden Plague keeping bodies young and fit, twelve-hour workdays remained the norm, six of them per week.

  In this case just catching up on her office work took the time allotted, though like most of the military mothers, she did it all from her flat. Wherever Rick is, is home, Jill thought as she filed her last fitness report and stretched. But he wasn’t home, so it wasn’t either. The cramped, Spartan one-bedroom apartment lacked almost all the other amenities that normally provided a homey ambience. The Hippos had been kind to their new human allies, and grateful for liberating them from their Meme overlords, but their own economy was also stretched to the limit, on permanent war footing, so luxuries were few.

  Eating alone at her desk was no fun, so she decided to walk down to the Markis’ flat. Knocking once, she cracked the door. “Dannie? It’s Jill.”

  “Heah, honey, come on in,” her friend answered in that strange American South crossed with South African accent. “I made a big batch of étouffée if you want some. Gonna freeze the extra and send it back with Vincent on his next visit.”

  “In exchange for another bun in the oven, I imagine. When’s he get leave?” Jill sat down on a barstool across the kitchen counter, as there was no space in the tiny room to help out.

  Setting down two plates of the rice and seafood dish, Dani
ela replied, “Next week. Temasek is still on patrol with the Krugh out near New Jove. Can’t wait to see him. What about Rick?”

  “Still on Conquest; they’re testing the new particle cannon. He’ll be back in six weeks or so.” Jill absently patted her flat belly.

  “And with the new fertility treatments, start another two or three on the way, I imagine. The way BioMed is pushing, I’m surprised we’re not birthing litters.” Daniela’s smooth chocolate face turned pensive as she forked the Afranan version of shrimp into her mouth. “I don’t mind having the children, really. I know we need to breed more people as fast as we can. It just scares me what they are all growing up for.”

  “They won’t all be warriors, Dannie. With the Hippos now on our side, our children can be other things – scientists, engineers, farmers, teachers of the generations to come.”

  “As long as they serve the war effort, you mean. In twenty years we’ll each have a dozen or two kids lined up like Matryoshka dolls, and not long after that some of them might be dying in combat – not to mention my husband.”

  Jill leaned over to put her hand on her friend’s arm. She wanted to say, this is what it means to be a military wife. Instead she replied, “We all hope we’ll live to see this Meme threat ended. The only way we’ll do that is by beating them so badly they’ll leave us alone. But don’t worry, it will be a long time before they show up.”

  Daniela pushed food here and there on her plate, but did not meet Jill’s eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Ryss breath puffed white in the cold cargo bay. “We are moving on standard fusion drive,” Chirom remarked, looking upward as if to do so would reveal something. Unfortunately it did, for the elder suddenly focused on Trissk, who had foolishly allowed his vertical-slitted eyes to catch the dim light.

  Say nothing, he willed, and Chirom, after a long stare, looked back down at his fellow council members without comment. Trissk let out a hiss of relief. I will have to speak to Chirom soon, to assure him I am no spy. Actually…I am a spy, he admitted to himself, but not for any nefarious purpose.

  “Why is Desolator doing that?” whined Kirst’aa. “It always uses the photonic drive.”

  Chirom was unsure whether she meant Desolator the AI or Desolator the ship, though many times they were synonymous. “It does, unless it must maneuver into a system. Let us go to the tap-room at once.” Without formally closing the meeting he led the way from the open space of the meeting chamber – just an old, empty cargo bay – down the cold dingy corridors Desolator allowed them, and into the only place they might get answers.

  The rest followed after, more slowly.

  The tap-room was covered with cobbled-together technology: flatscreens, touchscreens, a few holoprojectors, keyboards, and controls of every sort in a jumble only a technologist could sort out. In the best control center they had, the devices here connected via myriad shunts – taps – to the ship’s systems, leeching information here and there from the cybernetic nerves of the ship’s AI. Occasionally Desolator’s repair drones removed a tap, but it never said anything to the Ryss about them. Perhaps on some level even an insane computer accepted its charges’ need to acquire information.

  Other feeds came from independent sensors laboriously placed about the great ship’s skin – or at least those parts open to space, which was not always the same thing. Between the two systems the clans retained some semblance of belief that they might someday control their own destiny.

  “What can be seen?” the Kirst’aa asked peevishly, squinting her near-blind eyes.

  “A gas giant, Eldest Mother,” replied the technologist on duty. “Desolator has detected fusion and electromagnetics. We are searching with long-range optics but…” The young female spread her claws helplessly. “If we could salvage another stabilizer…”

  “If, if, if. If we did that, Desolator might object, and take back all your toys,” the old Ryss hissed.

  “You have done well, Klis,” Chirom broke in, stepping between the Eldest Mother and the technologist. “Please continue to search, and let us know what you may find. We will be in the warm-room. Come, Eldest. You must be tired.”

  Trissk watched the interplay from the open doorway, fading back as the five elders swept past him, heading for the central living space of the Ryss. The warm-room was the one area that maintained a comfortable temperature, next to one of Desolator’s few functioning fusion reactors. After they left he stepped into the tap-room.

  “Ho, Trissk.”

  “Ho, Klis.” He stopped, suddenly embarrassed. The sleek young tech would soon come into her first fertility, as he was acutely aware. She also finds me pleasing. I would give anything if she will glorify me first, he thought; but for all his usual glibness, he could not make words come.

  A paw fell on his shoulder, claws digging in insultingly. Trissk snarled and rounded on the owner, a large yearsmane called Vusk.

  “Ho, there, orphan youngling,” Vusk said with snide confidence. “No need to jump. Just thought I’d say hello to my Promised.” He smiled a closed-mouth grin at Klis, for of course showing teeth meant something else entirely.

  “I’m not your Promised, Vusk.” Klis said demurely, batting her long lashes at the bigger male. “And it’s not Trissk’s fault his dam was killed in the war.”

  “Of course, pretty one.” Turning to Trissk, Vusk made waving motions with the backs of his digits. “You may go now.”

  Trissk hissed between his fangs and turned to leave the tap-room. Unless he was willing to challenge Vusk to personal combat, there seemed little he could do about his rival.

  “Farewell, Trisski,” the mocking voice of Vusk floated after him. Then, faintly to Klis: “Don’t worry about that maneless wonder. I’ll keep you company. What were the Decrepit Ones so excited about, anyway?”

  Klis’ reply was lost in the groaning and humming of the battered ship as Trissk stomped down the corridor toward the warm-room. Why does she tolerate him? Why does she not order him away? Females choose whom they will. What does Vusk have that she wants? Besides size and maturity and confidence and good looks and a long thick mane…

  He forced thoughts of Klis and Vusk out of his head and turned his mind to Desolator’s situation, and his eavesdropping. Perhaps he could catch Chirom’s eye for a private audience and explain.

  Rounding a corner, he got his wish as he ran headlong into the elder. Seeing him, Chirom grasped the younger Ryss’ shoulders and pulled him into a side corridor, pinning him up against the wall. “You were spying,” he accused, shaking Trissk in his grip.

  “Yes, Elder, but only because I wish to know what is going on. I meant no harm.”

  Chirom let him go with another shake, holding up a pawful of naked claws. “I really should mark you where you stand, that you not forget your place.” Retracting his natural weapons with a stern glare, he relaxed slightly in the narrow space. “You still must explain yourself.”

  “Perhaps somewhere more private?” Bold, Trissk, but I must seize this opportunity.

  “Perhaps.” Chirom eyed the adolescent. “You know such a place?” Privacy was difficult to find in the small warm section Desolator allotted them, which was why the Council of Elders met in a dim chill cargo bay.

  “I do, but it is cold.”

  “Everything is cold,” Chirom responded, fastening his worksuit collar higher beneath his impressive mane.

  Trissk led Chirom down narrow side corridors until he stood in front of an old, non-functioning lift. Removing a mechanical key from around his neck, the younger Ryss unlocked the doors, then forced them open with a flip of a small crowbar from his work pouch, revealing an empty shaft beyond. “Down the ladder,” he motioned, exchanging the bar for a paw-light.

  Once they both hung on the rungs, Trissk used a lever to close the doors again and locked them from the inside, then led Chirom down the ladder three decks, toward the skin of the ship. A short, debris-cluttered corridor led to his pathetic workshop. Salvaged equipment fille
d one wall, and his cobbled workbench the other. Their breath hung in the freezing air, and Trissk grabbed two blankets, handing his elder one of them.

  “You should not have this place,” Chirom chided without anger as he wrapped his shoulders. “Desolator might object.”

  “We both know the threat from the AI is overstated. Eldest Mother calls it paranoid but it has never punished us, only taken away what it does not like. It is a machine; it has no morals. It does not get angry, it merely corrects what it sees as a problem. We could – we should do much more than we do. We should test the limits of what Desolator allows.” Trissk forced his lips over his teeth with deliberate humility. “I am trusting you by showing you this place, Elder. I know you will not betray me.”

  “That remains to be seen.” Chirom looked deliberately disapproving, then relented. “I will not, for now. But I am responsible for the Rell clan, and for what Ryss remain. You must tell me what you know.”

  ***

  Admiral Absen stepped onto Conquest’s bridge for the first time in over a year. Without a fleet, flag officers aboard were usually superfluous. In any case he was kept very busy with administrative matters, as the military governor of the human population in the Gliese 370 system. Almost a million resided on on Afrana, with fifty thousand on the planet’s moon Enoi running the pseudo-Von Neumann factories.

  Waving Mirza back to The Chair, he said, “It’s your ship, Captain. The General and I are just here for the politics, if any.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Mirza said with obvious relief. “We’ve held off on hailing them, and they haven’t made any signal to us that we can detect.”

  “Nothing at all? Johnstone?” Absen addressed the CyberComm officer with an upraised eyebrow.

  “Nothing at all that we recognize as a signal, sir. The Meme use radio and laser comms just like we do, ditto the Sekoi,” Rick answered, using the proper name for the Hippos out of respect for General Kullorg’s hulking presence. “Functionally there aren’t many choices out in space, but the only electromagnetics we get off of the vessel is infrared from some hot spots. We actually don’t know whether those represent something designed, or are residual, perhaps from damaged reactors.”