Dangerous Evolution

by Vann, Gregg

  I called out over the open channel, still connected to the Invincible. “Captain Prescott, do you see what I see?”

  “If you mean the three capital ships bearing down on us, then yes.” He barked out a few hurried orders to his bridge officers and then said, “Let me look at this. Ahhhh…they’ve opened a hole in their defenses.”

  Thov looked at its display and then over at me; I could tell it saw the weakness as well. The Sentients weren’t arrayed for an offensive, confinement strategy—one that would contain the enemy while whittling them down. They were engaged in a full-on, highly aggressive attack. Their anger was making them careless. The Sentients knew that we were making a stand here and didn’t anticipate having to chase or corral us. They were convinced that we were desperate—that we weren’t going anywhere.

  But they were wrong.

  “Captain Prescott, please tell our captains to exploit that opening and make an immediate strategic withdrawal.” I consciously invoked the long-used, face saving euphemism for running like hell, and listened as he relayed the order through to his communications officer.

  “We should also devise a defense for this position,” Prescott said, turning his attention back to me, “The advancing forces will be in weapon’s range in less than fifteen minutes.”

  “Captain Thov,” I tried one last time, “Anything?”

  Its face told me no—even before the words came out. “No, Commander…they refuse to listen.”

  “I understand; you’ve done everything you can.” I took a deep breath and carefully selected my next words, “I don’t presume to command you or this ship, Captain Thov, but please coordinate a defensive strategy with Captain Prescott’s group. This will be the first joint Sentient-Sector combat operation; let’s make it a good one.”

  “I’m sure it will be an effective collaboration, Commander. Plan B?”

  “Plan B,” I confirmed.

  I stuck my hand out, and Thov considered it a moment before reaching out to shake it.

  “Good luck, Captain,” I said.

  “And to you, Commander.”

  We’d been left with no choice; we would have to use the Mass Nullifier to get their attention, and then see how seriously they took the situation. The possibility of total destruction had to bring them to the bargaining table. I hoped so anyway. I couldn’t imagine actually using such a weapon.

  I took one last look at the tactical display and saw the bulk of our ships racing toward the opening. The Sentients were slow to pick up on what was happening, but some of their larger ships figured it out and were starting to arrange themselves for pursuit. The fleet might get out, I realized, but the Sentients would be right on their heels. Before turning away I saw another one of our ships wink out of existence, a blue dot representing a nearby stealth vessel vanished soon after.

  God damnit! Enough!

  I walked across the room to speak with Stinson; Val and Sa were at his side watching the events unfold.

  “So you are really going?” he asked.

  “You know I have to, Jeff. If things get…interesting for me out there,” I gestured at Val, “get her back home—no matter what. It’s important. If it all goes to shit, escape. On this ship if you can, on Prescott’s if you have to, but quit the fight and get the hell out. She was always the mission; make sure she gets home.”

  “I will,” he said somberly. “I promise.”

  “Why?” Val asked. “Why do you have to go? Ambassador Del doesn’t need your help. Certainly one madman is enough for this ridiculous plan.” There was anger in her voice, but I could tell it was directed at the situation, not me. I could hear the underlying concern in every word.

  Taking her hands in my own, I spoke softly, “I trust Del to do the right thing, but I can’t put the fate of humanity in its hands. I have to go—to ensure that the Sentient fleet is stopped.” I looked down into her eyes, savoring their beauty, “Believe me, I will do everything I can to get back here in one piece.”

  She reached out and hugged me, and I responded by wrapping my arms around her and squeezing tightly. I reluctantly broke away, then Stinson held out his hand and we shook firmly. As I turned to leave, Doctor Sa surprised me by extending its hand as well. I smiled at the Sentient, then returned the gesture and left the hub.

  At Del’s direction, Gos was waiting in the corridor to take me to the stealth ship. As we walked away, I heard the voices of Thov and Captain Prescott behind me, discussing engagement strategy over the com system.

  A good first step, I thought.

  I just wondered if any of us were going to survive long enough to see where it leads.

  Chapter Eleven

  Gos and I practically jogged to the hangar, where the Sentient manipulated the encrypted control pad and we rushed through the door. I was struck by the sheer size of the open space on the other side. It was a large rectangular area, three stories tall, with metal walkways ringing the perimeter—the elaborate structures extended all the way up to the ceiling. The walkways were connected to one another by a web of crisscrossing stairwells, and I could make out numerous Sentient technicians moving about the intricate framework.

  The hanger was easily two hundred meters long, terminating in a wide opening where I could look out and see the blackness of space. The vacuum was held back, or the atmosphere in depending on your perspective, by an iridescent force shield. The immensity of the room was made even more impressive by the fact that it only contained a single ship, sitting off to one side.

  I saw Del standing in the open hatch of the stealth craft, holding a portable scanner and slowly moving it across the surface of roundish, red object. The elongated orb was adorned with two bright yellow bands, one circling it from top to bottom, and the other painted around its circumference. I estimated the size of the device at a little over a meter tall—its shape reminding me of an inverted egg. It was balancing on its narrowly tapered edge in defiance of gravity and any orthodox understanding of balance.

  Even though I’d never seen one before, I knew that it had to be the Mass Nullifier. My mind also noted the irony of the egg shape; a form that usually produced life, was in this case, a powerful tool of death. Del looked up as we approached and turned off the scanner. “Commander, the ship is ready. We should depart immediately.”

  The Na’ardeen began to rock from weapons fire, echoing Del’s urgency; the impacts signaling the arrival of the attacking force that had split away from the main Sentient fleet. The large ship began moving with such force, either in attack or evasion, that I could actually feel its motions. Whatever was happening, the warship’s extreme maneuvers were pushing the stabilization systems to the limit.

  I hopped up into the open hatchway. “Let’s go.”

  I took a closer look at the bomb as I passed by it, experiencing disbelief at the power contained in that small package. I filed the information and its implications away, then followed Del to the front of the ship, where we both assumed positions at control pedestals. On my viewer, I saw Gos run from the room; as soon as the Sentient cleared the door, the atmosphere began to vent from the hangar.

  The ship’s shaking sent debris flying everywhere—tools and spare parts now littered the deck. Apparently, there hadn’t been enough time to secure everything before the attack. Once the air had been displaced, the gravity field shut down, and the detritus began to float about aimlessly—harmlessly bouncing off the hull as the vessel began to rise. Del spun the ship around to face the opening and the twinkling force shield disappeared, exposing the hangar to open space.

  “I’m engaging the stealth device,” Del stated, then the ship darted forward—trading the large hangar for the even greater vastness of space.

  “What the…?” I exclaimed.

  We’d almost been struck by an impossibly fast flash of white, as a small attack craft sprinted across our bow. Unlike the Sentient capital ships, fighters couldn’t detect us, no matter how close they got. While this prevented them from attacking our ship,
it also meant that they couldn’t see us to avoid collisions either.

  Del brought the ship down low relative to the bulk of the Na’ardeen, and then we dove underneath—emerging on the other side of its substructure where we narrowly avoided crashing into another attack fighter. The small ship erupted into fragments in our wake—taken out by the Na’ardeen’s guns. The explosion was so close that some pieces of the craft bounced off the rear of our ship, other bits flew into the engine’s invisible emissions trail where they flared white before burning up completely.

  Once we escaped the immediate battle zone I turned my attention back to my monitor—trying to use the information displayed there to gauge the probable outcome of the struggle. The three large Sentient ships had already disgorged their attack craft, and were now holding back from our group, firing their main guns.

  The Na’ardeen and Invincible had also sent out their fighters, and were now performing evasive maneuvers—trying to avoid the heavy fire pouring out of the Sentient dreadnoughts. Our ships appeared to be using speed and random course changes to lower their target profiles. They were also training the majority of their guns on the Sentient fast attack craft harassing them.

  The four destroyers escorting the Invincible broke away from the battle proper and started concentrating all of their firepower on a single Sentient dreadnought. It had no choice but to leave formation and address the threat—moving off to engage them while the other two focused on the mixed Sector/Sentient formation.

  That took some of the pressure off Thov and Prescott, but the situation still looked bleak. The Sentients had an additional capital ship, and more vessels overall, and that numerical advantage had borne fruit. Quite simply, our fighter craft were disappearing faster than theirs. But the coordinated fire coming from the Na’ardeen and Invincible—all directed at the Sentient fighters—was starting to even things up.

  In all, the joint Sentient/Sector strategy was an interesting approach that made a lot of sense. Going toe to toe in a fight with the other dreadnoughts would certainly spell defeat, so concentrating on the small ships first—removing them from the field—might help change the odds. Hopefully, the Sentients didn’t catch on until there were no fighters left to protect them from a counterattack.

  Scanning out ahead of us, I saw that the main Sentient fleet finally realized that the humans were trying to escape, and had finished repositioning their ships to pursue them. The smaller, faster craft continued to engage the retreating Sector forces, but the capital ships and other heavy hitters were only slowly catching up.

  “We will never get there in time,” I said.

  “We will,” Del replied. “I am sacrificing the engines to make it possible.”

  I realized the Sentient wasn’t kidding when the ship began to shudder in protest. The control pedestals not in use automatically shut down, and the lights dimmed as the ship went on emergency lighting. Del was pouring everything into the propulsion systems.

  “Won’t that increase our power signature, making it more difficult to conceal our approach?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter, Commander. The Sentients are still the only ones that can detect us, and they’ll think we’re part of their fleet. It’s only when we make our intentions known that they’ll pay any attention to us at all. By then, we’ll be too close for it to do them any good.”

  “What’s to keep them from destroying the ship and simply removing us from the equation?”

  “Because they know the explosion would detonate the nullifier, killing them anyway. Once it has been armed it’s…volatile.”

  I suppose that is deterrent enough, I thought. But there was something else I didn’t understand.

  “Del,” I began, considering my words carefully, “if your people are dying anyway, and they know they are dying; why should they care about the destruction of their fleet? The nullifier is no threat to those already condemned to death.”

  The Sentient looked up from its control panel. “Because then they wouldn’t be alive to kill you. Not you personally, Commander; all humans. They’ve all seen video communications from their families, learned about dead children, spouses, and parents. In some cases, they’ve seen the diseased deaths of loved ones in person.”

  Del’s face took on a dangerous aspect. “If I thought you were responsible, I would kill you right now with my bare hands.”

  My hand moved to my TAC pistol, just as it had the very first time I saw Del back on Evan’s Moon. The ambassador was a dangerous being, and the last few days I’d spent working alongside it did nothing to change that fact.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m not responsible. Isn’t it, Ambassador?”

  “Yes,” Del replied, its mechanical eyes blazed red, then diminished into a deep maroon. The anger was still there, but thankfully not directed at me.

  “My child and spouse and are dead, Commander, and I wasn’t there with them when they perished. Their bodies lie rotting on Seveq—now beyond my reach. They haven’t been sent to the sun as our religion dictates; none of my people have.” Del’s stare was intense, but focused elsewhere, “It’s a blasphemy I don’t know how to fix, and a shame I find hard to live with.”

  The Sentient looked back down at its screen in dark contemplation.

  I remembered my own rage on El Ferras; the madness that overcame me when I found Natasha’s broken body. At first, I howled like an animal, and then I killed like one. From that point on in the war, I was merciless…suicidal even. I lost all compassion and empathy; at times, I feared I’d even abandoned my own humanity—instead becoming something simultaneously clinical and feral.

  A remorseless killer.

  Nothing more.

  How many lives had I taken trying to bring her back? Five hundred? A thousand? Even more? How sad is it that I don’t even know. And for what? The blood I shed didn’t seep into the soil—miraculously lifting Tasha from the grave to rest in my arms again; she is still buried on that distant world. Her corpse cold and lifeless, wearing a ring that matched the one I was now twirling on my own finger. Oh yes, I knew exactly how the Sentients felt, and that hunger for revenge is nearly impossible to quench.

  “I see you understand, Commander,” Del said, pointing at my ring. The Sentient had been watching the outward signs of my internal realizations. My feelings, barely diminished over time, were etched into my face.

  “It doesn’t change anything,” I replied.

  “I think it does…Ben.”

  Ben? Del had never called me by name before.

  And then it was on me; the Sentient leaped across the small space between us—grabbing my neck so quickly that I had no chance to react. I felt a low current begin to discharge from its fingers and leech into my body.

  This is it, I thought, it is going to kill me.

  My head went numb and tingly, and I morosely resolved to start wearing rubber suits if I somehow got out of this.

  “Relax, Commander,” Del said softly, “I know you are a decent person; doing your best to help both our peoples. I’m not going to kill you.”

  My entire body became paralyzed, but I could still see and hear perfectly. What the hell was it up to? The Sentient released my neck and picked me up, casually throwing me over its shoulder. It carried me through the doorway of the hub and back toward the rear of the ship. Halfway there, we stopped at a circular hatch set into the corridor wall and the Sentient put me down gently. It input some commands into a control panel overhead, and then the round door slid inward and open. Del reached inside to adjust some other machinery.

  “I’m sending you back, Commander. There is no reason for you to die as well.”

  I tried to reply…to protest, but my tongue was just as numb as the rest of me.

  “There is no guarantee that Captain Thov, or any of your forces will survive this battle, so you may yet be captured or killed. It’s my hope you will survive.”

  Del picked me up; half stuffing-half sliding me into what I deduced must be an escape p
od. It was small, but not overly so; the white cylinder naturally designed with Sentient physiology in mind. It was comparatively roomy with a much smaller human occupant. There was a display on the curved wall in front of me; the screen currently showing the two fleets locked in their deadly sprint across the system.

  I heard Del’s voice from outside the pod, reverberating loudly inside the tube. “Remember your promise to me, Commander. Save my people.” Then the door above my head closed and I heard the sound of depressurization.

  Seconds later, there was a violent jolt; I felt my stomach surge up into my throat, then flatten out as I was shot out into space. The ejection was anything but smooth—probably due to the unnatural speed the ship was moving, trying to catch up with the Sentient fleet.

  I felt the drive system kick in, then the monitor pulled back to display my position relative to the other ships in the system. I was indeed moving back in the direction of the Na’ardeen, while Del hurtled toward the large cluster of fleeing and fighting ships. I also noticed that the Sentients were closing the gap established earlier by Sector’s abrupt change of tactics. They were rapidly catching up to the Sector fleet.

  I was already starting to get some feeling back in my extremities, but the sensation was maddening; like having an itch you can’t scratch. It was made even worse by my need to stretch out and shake my arms and legs—an impossible wish confined in this damned tube.

  Del’s face appeared on the screen. “I’ve taken up position near the rear of the fleet—very close to the majority of our larger ships. Those responsible for making the final decision will be here, and I hope my proximity will make them listen. If not, their destruction will greatly weaken our forces.” The image shook and blurred out, then the screen returned to the overview of the system.