Unlike their approach to Bayn Balro, which had been tense but optimistic as the crew realised that they were back in charted Six Species space and that the beacons were still lit, the mood on board the Tramp this time when the destination counter shifted to orange was more subdued. One small settlement demolished in apparent accordance with a mad Molran’s proclamation could be coincidence. A settlement – a world, really, in its own right – like The Warm would be far more difficult to discount. The tension was thicker, the optimism replaced with a grim sense of wanting to get the waiting over with.
Even Janya, usually fairly indifferent to community feeling, came to the bridge when Zeegon announced their return to normal space was approaching. Z-Lin didn’t allow the evacuees to join them, and Contro and Cratch were instructed to remain at their posts, but the rest of the Tramp’s tiny crew were there. Waffa probably should have been keeping an eye on Contro, but nothing short of force would have kept him off that bridge.
They dropped out of soft-space and decelerated into the lower registers of subluminal cruise, gliding into the otherwise-inhospitable system The Warm called home.
This time there was no beacon. There were no ships, no hails, no traffic. There was no chatter on the general AstroCorps comms.
The Warm was dead.
Z-LIN
Clue didn’t allow herself to sigh, although she could have let one through unnoticed in the gusty lungful Zeegon let out and permitted to evolve into a protracted groan.
“Alright,” she said, “we all know what to do. Sally, let’s have full battle stations this time.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Decay, let’s see what’s lit up down there. Zeegon, take us in.”
They sidled in towards The Warm, slowly decelerating from maximum cruising subluminal, and the crew’s initial alarm began to fade. First of all, while the AstroCorps orbital approach beacon was out, there were some energy signatures and communications transmissions from the surface, albeit worryingly minimalist ones. Decay cautiously identified and reported them as auxiliary power generators and emergency comm relays – old ones.
“Most of them are buried deep in the cylinder,” the Blaran explained, “masked by the native mineral. A couple of them are in the modular clusters, but those seem to have been hardest hit. It looks as though the oldest established habitats, and the deepest holes, the film-bubbles, are the places where people managed to ride it out. It’s making it difficult to pick out a coherent signal and establish communications. Looks like they’re delaying that anyway, until we get closer and they know whether or not we’re friendly.”
“Smart,” Clue conceded.
“Like Bayn Balro,” Waffa said, and Z-Lin was pleased to note the professional calm in his voice even though he was leaning forward and staring into the window panels as though he could make out surface details with the naked eye. “The only people not to get hit were the ones who missed the whole thing because they were under the surface somewhere.”
“I’m not seeing much sign of an actual battle,” Z-Lin said, “or any sort of impact or debris. Just a lot of collapsed or missing Chrysanthemum superstructure, and the rest. Even mini-whorls would scatter more rubble than this, wouldn’t they?”
“Yes,” Sally replied. “Matter splashback would cause a whole lot of mess, even if most of it got swallowed. This looks more like most of the modulars disconnected and flew out of here, carrying the hubs and Mandelbrot pylons with them.”
“We can hope that’s what did happen,” Zeegon suggested.
“Nope,” Waffa answered before Clue could. “Most of those ships were grafted in and completely gutted, there was no way they’d be able to fly. The Warm’s a … a … a trailer park. A four-thousand-year-old trailer park, in space. Unless an intact Worldship came by and loaded…” he trailed off, and pointed. “Ships.”
Zeegon leaned forward and squinted. “Holy crap,” he said, “I think he’s right.”
“You’ll all be delighted to hear they’re Fergunakil ships,” Decay told everyone.
“Shit,” Clue spat. “Sally–”
“We’re ready to rock, Commander.”
The Warm, by its nature, did not have a large Fergunak presence. It did, however, have a rather spectacular habitat nestled into one end amidst all the structures and modulars. The Chalice was a huge bowl-shaped segment of an old Molran Worldship hull and some wide crescents of its interior decks, and the majority of its atmosphere- and gravity-controlled levels were aquatic.
The Chalice seemed untouched, although it was difficult to be sure from this side. Z-Lin had been impressed by it on their last visit to The Warm, approximately a trillion years ago, and it seemed equally stupendous now. A Worldship flying in space was amazing, but your brain tended to zoom back and tell you it’s just a very big starship, nothing to panic about. When the same Worldship was broken into a huge arc of melon-peel and gummed to the end of a thousand-mile-long alien artefact with its levels spanning the arc like baleen, your brain said no, I don’t think so.
Clue had not really been a trillion years younger, of course, although she’d been such a junior officer at the time that it sometimes felt that way. About all she could say about the Chalice, and The Warm in general, was that there was a lot less bustle going on around it now. That, and the eerie silence on the comm channels and assorted darkened energy readouts, seemed to be the only change. Well, if you didn’t look too closely at the horrifically-shorn Mandelbrot at the far end.
The aquatic habitats of the Chalice had indeed sent up a pair of long, windowless gunmetal tubes – Fergunakil torpedo-ships, scarred and pockmarked and decorated with weird extrusions of cybernetic machinery, and bristling with weapons.
When the transmission came, though, it was a human voice. It didn’t necessarily mean it was human – Fergunakil voice modulators could copy as wide a range of voice-types as synthetic intelligences or even ordinary computers. But it was a good sign.
It also didn’t make any noticeable attempt to weird them out, which was another point in favour of ‘actual human’.
“We read your Corps nod, modular,” the voice said, “please identify.”
“Commander Z-Lin Clue, official starship designation AstroCorps Transpersion Modular Payload 400,” Clue announced, “Astro Tramp 400 to our friends. We’re a deep-space exploration and transportation vessel, minimal crew, limited technical capabilities. We’re reading you loud and clear.”
“Good to hear your voice, Commander,” the circling Fergunakil ship said. “This is Acting Controller Bendis of The Warm, formerly Comms Technician Group Supervisor Bendis of Gotung Southwark. We’re using the Fergunak ships as comms boosters,” Bendis explained, “as well as a first and last line of defence … for all the good that’s likely to do.”
“What happened here, Controller?” Clue asked.
“We’re still investigating,” Acting Controller Bendis said in clear frustration. “Everything’s arsed and fucked and arsed again over here, Commander.”
Clue glanced sardonically at Waffa, who was still standing at near-parade-attention next to her auxiliary command console. So Warmers really do all talk like that, she thought, the accusation quite clear on her face for the Chief of Security and Operations to pick up. Waffa favoured her with the ghost of a smile.
“You’re welcome to assist in the investigation, or add any of your own data,” Bendis was continuing, “but at the moment it’s all pretty thin on the God damn ground. The only ships we have left, as you can see, is a handful of Fergunakil heavy gunships that managed to survive. And most of them were decommissioned at the time for reasons of being unspaceworthy, which is why we suspect they were overlooked. Apparently the Fergies unplugged themselves from their grid and just plain got ignored. Some of them, anyway. I don’t know what they thought the ships actually were. Skin-tight aquariums or something, maybe.”
“‘They’?” Waffa murmured. Z-Lin nodded – she’d picked that up too – but didn’t press th
e issue yet.
“The Fergunak didn’t attack?” she asked instead. “Attack the rest of the settlement, I mean, after the initial assault. I assume you would have told us if they’d mounted any sort of counterattack on whatever caused this.”
“You’re right about that, and no – in fact, on the contrary,” Acting Controller Bendis said. “They’re helping. They don’t have the capacity to carry passengers, each of their ships can only fit one Fergie, but they’re acting as emergency tugs, pulling in loose habitat components and securing hub spars, ferrying things from end to end, all sorts. Going for aid. Using their giela for some heavy lifting, too. The Fergunak survivors are stuck in the Chalice and there aren’t anywhere near enough ships to get them out of here even assuming the worst in terms of losses, so they sent a few of their boys off to find help but the rest of their ships haven’t cut and run, they’re doing what they can because they’ve got no choice.”
Until the others come back, Z-Lin couldn’t help but think, with enough ships to evacuate the Chalice and rip the whole lot of you to pieces. Living and operating alongside Fergunak was always a dicey business, and just when you started to expect the worst from them every time, they surprised you again.
“…and helping with some repairs,” Bendis was continuing, “they’re good with the tech. ‘Any way we can help, little flesh,’ they say. Creepy bastards. People are wondering why they didn’t turn coat if this was…” the Acting Controller paused, then went on defiantly, as if finally daring to say it aloud, “…Damorakind. But they seem to be in this with us, so we’re not asking questions right now. Too many other questions to get to first.”
“Damorakind would destroy Six Species Fergunak just as quickly as they’d destroy Molren,” Z-Lin said, thinking of the Fergunak of the Larger Dark Moving Below school, and what they’d said to Waffa. At least here, there seemed to be a more even survivor demographic mix, and – as Bendis had said – nowhere for the sharks to go. At least currently.
It was a different set of starting conditions too, of course. The Warm was a dry-land settlement with aquatic habitats, rather than the opposite.
“That’s what I keep telling people,” Bendis agreed. “Anyway, they’ve been helping, creepy or not. They’ve also been towing some wounded in pods to the only Molran cruiser to survive,” the Acting Controller added, “the Maka Lomgrem, in the outer system. She’s not relative-capable but she has sleeper berths, which seems to be the best bet for some of the wounded right now.”
“Wounded Molranoids,” Decay said quietly from his station.
Bendis seemed to hear this. “There aren’t that many human wounded left,” he said fatalistically. “They all either died already, or are on the mend by now, or haven’t been found yet so are probably in one of those two categories. Sleeping them up wouldn’t help, since humans aren’t compatible. Molren and Blaren and Bonshooni can take a lot more damage and be okay as long as the sleeper berths are there to keep them stable. And our fabrication plants are … well, if you guys can help us out with ables or organs or basically anything, it will be more than we have.”
“We can print off some spare parts,” Clue hedged, “but our own fabrication plant is damaged.”
“Shit, I’m sorry Commander,” Bendis said. “I didn’t even ask. Did you guys get hit? Is there a blockade? How did you get through?”
“We’re just coming from the site of what looks like a similar disaster,” Clue said, “ocean planet a couple of weeks out.”
“Bayn Balro?” the Acting Controller said. “All the way out there? Shit. Shit. They got a serve of this too?”
“Yes,” Clue said carefully. “We pulled out twenty-seven Bonshoon survivors, otherwise casualties – non-Fergunakil casualties – were total. I’ll pass on our full report, the Fergunak in the Chalice will probably want to know that there’s another bunch of schools out there waiting for relief. They’d turned hostile and violated Corps regulations and the charter, but we couldn’t have brought them all with us in a modular anyway. It’s all in my official statement.”
Bendis whistled. “Understood,” he said, subdued. “And that’s all that was left? All you brought with you? The twenty-seven Bonshooni?”
“Along with minimal equipment,” Clue replied, “and … zero product.”
Acting Controller Bendis was silent for a moment, then he chuckled. “Copy that, Commander. And don’t worry. We’re all just as happy to be pulling air and doing our jobs without getting hopped up on smoke right now. That junk was mainly an issue for the Molren to worry about and it was a big deal in the Chalice dry-land environments and their ‘ponics systems. Not my department,” he paused. “Except I guess it sort of is, until they can ship in a new Controller. Don’t suppose you want the job?”
“Hell no.”
“Fair enough. In that case, thank you for not adding smoke to our catalogue of woes.”
“Bayn Balro was hit … it would be about three weeks ago now, Corps calendar,” Z-Lin said. “How about The Warm?”
“About the same,” Bendis said, sounding surprised. “We’ve barely had time to get on top of the big stuff, and there are still new problems raising their heads every day. Whatever it was, looks like it was God damn coordinated. And coordinated well, too. Shit,” he paused again, then asked the question Z-Lin had been fancifully hoping he wouldn’t bother to ask. “How did you guys get around it?”
“I guess we were in transit,” she said, “bypassed the front lines.”
“Well, you got lucky. We haven’t contacted any of the usual rota of ships that should have been coming in by now – you’re the first – and none of the ships to fly out of here have checked in. It’s almost like they were plucked out of soft-space. Not that there were many of the latter, this came down so damn fast. But the Fergies…”
Clue found herself unwilling to point out to this clearly-on-the-edge man that the Fergunak had most likely decamped for good. “We’ll figure it out,” she said instead, keeping her tone crisp and confident. “Do you have a reliable count of survivors?”
“At the moment it’s looking like we’ll be lucky to break into the thousands, Commander,” Bendis’s voice, in contrast, was heavy. “I’m looking at the numbers now, and the total’s just pipped the nine hundred mark.”
“What are our immediate priorities, Controller?” Clue said, aware of Waffa standing rigid by her side.
“Well, that’s an interesting one,” Bendis said after another pause. “We’ll send you some data and you can make up your own mind, but in the meantime there’s only a couple of docking spars cleared for use right now so you might as well go ahead and park over there. I’m on ground level at the base so I’ll see you shortly, Commander.”
“Copy that,” Z-Lin replied.
“Oh, and you’ll want to rug up. We’ve got basic life support but even inside it’s nippy, and you may need to cross open areas. There’s atmosphere, but it’s bloody cold atmosphere.”
“Copy.”
“And the gravity exchanges are dead and The Warm doesn’t have much pull,” Bendis concluded, “so bring your magboots unless you like bouncing.”
“Right you are, Controller, and thanks. Clue out,” Z-Lin gave Zeegon the go-ahead, and they revolved steadily into alignment with The Warm’s axis. The Tramp began to glide past the Chalice and towards the truncated mass of habitats at the far end of the relic. The Fergunakil gunships followed for a short distance, and then returned to their designated patrol zone.
“I know it’s wrong,” Zeegon commented, reaching up and giving Boonie a little mutually-reassuring scratch between the ears, “but I’m kinda glad I don’t have to navigate through traffic.”
Waffa whistled. “Look,” he pointed again. “The Chalice.”
The monstrous Worldship hull segment had seemed more or less intact, but as they cruised by on their way towards their allocated docking spar and Clue took a closer look, she realised a lot of its interior was extruding ice in great outlandish bulge
s and coils. The gravity exchanges were gone, the life support most likely gone too. The water was drifting out of more than half the aquatic levels of the Chalice and forming a little ice-meteor sheet across the bowl.
“Decay,” Clue said, “any data on the populations at last census?”
“Rough split,” Decay replied, consulting his console, “one and a half million humans, two hundred and seventy thousand Fergunak, two hundred and fifty thousand Molren, eight thousand Blaren, three thousand Bonshooni,” he tapped with his lower left hand. “No reliable stats on survivors yet, except the running total and some high-level demographic divisions – like the Controller said, they’re still clearing areas and finding people. The data’s still fluid.”
I’m looking at the numbers now, Z-Lin thought with a little shiver, and the total’s just pipped the nine hundred mark.
“A quarter of a million sharks,” Waffa said. “That’s probably more than there were in the ocean around Bayn Balro. And the levels are venting their water into space.”
Z-Lin turned to Waffa. “Go and get your things together,” she said. “Once we dock, you can go looking for your family and friends. Just … send back any other information you might find our way, if you get the chance.”
“You got it.”
“And you’re still Chief of Security and Operations until we find someone better,” she added as he headed off the bridge, “so if the worst happens…”
“Right,” Waffa said, and paused at the door. “Thanks, boss.”
The Tramp moved along the frighteningly bare mass of The Warm’s cylinder, past the gutted remains of habitats and the lopped-off pylons of Chrysanthemum hubs. There really was no actual sign of weapons damage as any of them recognised it. The thick metallic surface of The Warm was gouged in a few places with what might have passed for research digs if they didn’t intersect with severed add-ons, and the settlements themselves were sliced and simply deleted for the most part, but there was no sign of explosive damage. No burns or melted slag, except in a couple of locations where the removal of machinery had apparently set off fires in the truncated remains. No impact craters or shrapnel. As Sally had already said, even mini-whorls would have left more than this.
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