Rin doubted those associates had suspected any of what they’d actually found out there.
“Can you convince them to talk sense into their governments?” he asked. “The Wendira are being…difficult.”
“The Queens have told Oxtashah there is a price for their cooperation,” Ki!Tana said grimly, her skin dark gray. “I will bend the waters toward those who must hear. But there are no guarantees in this, my friend.”
“Will you meet with Morgan?” Rin asked.
“There is no time,” she replied. “I have old friends among the Laians, as well as our associates. I will head into Republic space to start and I will do what I can. You must do what you can here.”
“I’m barely sure I even belong in those talks,” Rin admitted. “And it’s not like there’s massive fleets here to send.”
The gathering he’d interrupted had been intended to stave off a potential war along the Wendira-Laian border. Including Ki!Tana’s Dark Eyes, there were only four ships there: a Wendira star hive, a Laian war-dreadnought, and an A!Tol superbattleship.
“But the people here have authority over those fleets,” Ki!Tana told him. “The Laian and Imperial fleets along the Dead Zone are eleven cycles from Tan!Stalla. The Wendira fleet is sixteen. The next-nearest Laian significant deployment is twenty-three.”
An A!Tol cycle was twenty-three hours and twenty minutes. Not quite a full day, but close enough that most senior Terrans had learned to switch between the two almost effortlessly—and Rin Dunst was a senior Imperial academic.
He’d spent most of his adult life away from Earth and other humans. He thought in Imperial time.
“I will do what I can,” he promised Ki!Tana. “Morgan is in trouble if I don’t, not that I need that extra motivation.” He shivered. “I can’t help but feel that the Infinite are going to eat us all if we don’t stop them.”
“That certainly seems to be their intent,” the A!Tol agreed. “I will move the waters only I can swim. I leave you to move the waters you are already in. We will meet again in time, I hope.”
“Gods speed you, Ki!Tana.”
“And may the waters be warm where you swim, Rin Dunst.”
Tan!Shallegh’s office aboard the superbattleship Va!Tola was sumptuous and well decorated. One wall was covered in a massive screen, subdivided into the usual array of windows of an A!Tol multitasking. The other two were filled with shelves holding art.
All of the artworks, Rin knew, were originals—commissioned from up-and-coming artists on the worlds Tan!Shallegh had brought into the Imperium, including Earth. The being the office belonged to had the wealth and power to have Picasso’s or Michelangelo’s original work removed from Earth for his pleasure, but instead he’d chosen to support Earth culture instead of steal it.
“Your companion once again flees without ever showing their face,” Tan!Shallegh observed as Rin took a seat, gesturing to a screen showing Dark Eyes rapidly departing.
“You…understand her situation,” Rin said carefully.
“I know exactly who Ki!Tana is,” Tan!Shallegh agreed. A flush of red amusement flickered across his skin. “Exactly, Professor. A confidence I am not permitted to share, even if she has.”
Rin looked at the Fleet Lord in confusion. There was some meaning there, he was certain, but he didn’t have the context to pick it up. As a historian and an archaeologist, the feeling was familiar.
“You asked for me, Fleet Lord?” he finally said.
“Yes. We just received the first formal update from Squadron Lord Tan!Stalla,” Tan!Shallegh told him.
He and Tan!Stalla were related—the Tan! meant they were both closely related to the Empress. What, exactly, that relationship entailed was beyond Rin. He had a decent understanding of what A!Tol family relationships looked like, but the Tan! were notorious about keeping a lot of those details off of public networks.
“I believed you would wish to see it,” the Fleet Lord continued, tapping a command with a manipulator tentacle.
The multiple different windows on the wallscreen faded to black, providing a backdrop for the holographic image of a female A!Tol in the black harness of the Imperial uniform.
“Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh,” Tan!Stalla greeted them. The hyperfold communicators they used for portable FTL communications were faster than light, but they weren’t instantaneous. Instant communication was only available to those at the massive, immobile starcom stations in major systems.
Still, this message had been sent barely eighteen hours earlier from the time stamp.
“This is an update to our earlier reports,” Tan!Stalla continued. “We have, as reported, made rendezvous with Defiance. Unfortunately, Captain Casimir’s command was beyond any possible repair-at-space.
“Defiance has been scuttled to protect her technology, and we have taken up a position on the course the traitors used to enter the Astoroko Nebula.” A flash of purple crossed her skin as she fluttered her manipulators in a shrug.
“I lack the numbers to maintain a real blockade of the Nebula and must hope that the Infinite exit on the route used by their new captives.” She paused. “We have no idea what the final fate of the conspirators was, but I must assume that Builder of Tomorrows is in Infinite hands.
“Captain Casimir has been assessing the threat level with a team pulled from my staff and hers. They have a preliminary report that I have attached to this transmission, but it is concerning. These are dark waters we swim in, and I fear for the survival of my command and the completion of our mission.
“Containment remains the best option against this threat, but I do not feel that my task force is sufficient to achieve that mission,” Tan!Stalla admitted. “Reinforcements from any source are required by the swiftest currents.”
She paused, her tentacles twitching.
“I believe, based on what we know so far, that the first wave of Infinite excursions will be scouting missions. They will be smaller ships and small in number. I have units in hyperspace, scanning for anomalies at all times, and hope to be able to intercept those scouting expeditions.
“That will keep the Infinite blind for a time, but true containment will require vastly more forces than I have to hand. You will understand once you have reviewed Captain Casimir’s report.”
Tan!Stalla flashed the dark green of determination.
“We will hold as long as we can,” she promised. “But every ship I am sent will increase the chances we can hold for long enough.”
The A!Tol’s image froze, fading out to be replaced by Morgan Casimir. Rin took a moment to just drink in the sight of his lover, clearly alive. The slim blonde woman was perfectly turned out in her black uniform.
Her eyes and her hair told the truth to him. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, not the more complex short braid she favored, and her eyes were just…tired.
“We have now spent roughly two full cycles working through all of our scan data on the Infinite in the Eye of the Astoroko Nebula,” she began, her voice precise. “We have established an identification taxonomy with, currently, ten separate items.
“The base categorization is by size, beginning at Category One: bioforms of up to one hundred meters, and rising exponentially. Thankfully, we currently have only identified two Category Eight bioforms: the Great Mother we encountered near Kosha and what we are designating the Infinite Queen.”
A holographic simulation of the monstrous beast Rin remembered from the Eye appeared above Casimir’s left shoulder.
“All categories of Infinite bioforms follow roughly the same overall structure as the Servants encountered at Kosha,” Casimir continued. “The Servants themselves represent a subcategory, as they used organic plasma thrusters where all true Infinite bioforms use an unknown form of reactionless acceleration.”
New images appeared as she spoke, highlighting the Servants of the Great Mother.
“For comparison with what we are looking at here, the Servants are Categories One-S, Two-S, and Three-S. The Grea
t Mother does not appear to have created bioforms above Category Three.
“This, combined with our understanding of how she was made, leads me to the conclusion that the sun eater and her Servants may not be a useful data source on the Infinite…but they are what we have.
“The key secondary category currently identified among the Infinite bioforms is Category Six-A,” she noted, a spherical image replacing the Servants in front of her. “While the other bioforms share a roughly spermatoid shape, the Six-As are bound into a spherical form by their defining characteristic: each of them has taken over the shell of an Alavan mothership.
“We have confirmed forty-six of these units,” she said grimly. “Given the strength of the Alavan fleet we know the Infinite pursued into the Astoroko Nebula, we believe there may be more.
“The units will be significantly more survivable than the rest of the bioforms and may even be in possession of Alavan-style teleporter weapons,” Casimir concluded. “The rest appear to be mostly armed with plasma cannons, with the Category Six and larger bioforms possessing a microsingularity weapon that defies our current ability to explain.”
Tan!Shallegh’s skin was dark with fear when Rin glanced at him.
“Currently, our best estimate is that there are eight Category Sevens and roughly two hundred and fifty Category Sixes,” Casimir noted quietly. “We saw forty-six Six-As and approximately five hundred Category Fives.
“Category Four, with bioforms between ten and one hundred kilometers in size, is where we encounter units that are likely comparable in threat level to most capital ships of the Core Powers,” she continued grimly. “Estimated strength is just over two thousand. Numbers in the smaller Categories could not be meaningfully assessed.”
“Two thousand capital-ship equivalents and eight hundred more powerful than any Core capital ship,” Tan!Shallegh estimated aloud. “What did we wake up?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Rin admitted.
Casimir was still speaking, and both of them turned their attention back to the transmission.
“The only good news I can offer is that none of the identified bioforms are capable of any form of FTL travel,” she told them. “They are, as things currently stand, utterly trapped in the Astoroko Nebula.
“However, once in possession of hyperdrive technology, it is extremely likely that they will be able to create their own version of it. This will take them time, however…”
Captain Morgan Casimir visibly swallowed, then squarely faced the pickups.
“Based on the Category Six-As, I believe that the Infinite are more than willing to incorporate hard tech into their bioforms,” she admitted. “I estimate that we will see a small number of cyborg-style vessels equipped directly with Laian hyper-portal emitters in the near future.
“Their numbers should remain low so long as the Infinite do not come into possession of significant amounts of the raw materials necessary to build more emitters. Most especially, exotic matter.”
She shrugged.
“If we can restrict their access to exotic matter and exotic-matter-production facilities, that could limit their ability to provide FTL capability to their forces. On the other hand, I hesitate to suggest that a species capable of generating black holes on command lacks the ability to produce exotic matter for their own needs.
“The Laian hyper-portal emitter system is similar to most others I’ve seen,” she noted. “Even putting aside exotic matter, it requires elements not easily found at the heart of a nebula. Builder of Tomorrows, of course, carries significant supplies of those elements—and is herself made of more. Since the Infinite will have little interest in building Laian-style ships, I suspect every portion of the traitor fleet that entered the Astoroko Nebula will be broken down to build hyperdrives.
“We are working now on estimating how many portal emitters that might enable them to build while they are…growing their own.”
She shook her head.
“It will be a very vague calculation, even once it’s done, but it will give us an upper limit. I do not expect that limit to apply for long. Based off what we know of the Great Mother, I would estimate it will take no more than one long-cycle for the Infinite to have significant numbers of biotech hyperdrives.
“And that is assuming the Infinite are only as capable as the Mother.”
Casimir exhaled.
“Further detailed technical reports are attached to this, but the fundamental assessment is this: we are facing a force with a greater weight of firepower than any individual Core Power. They are limited in range due to the lack of smart or FTL weaponry, and in interstellar mobility due to the lack of hyperdrives.
“Thanks to their possession of Builder of Tomorrows, they will unquestionably work to fix the latter. Having engaged multiple modern ships in combat successfully, I suspect they will also work to fix the former.
“Keeping them contained inside the Astoroko Nebula will limit their ability to do both. If they break out and acquire significant resources at this point, I believe…” Casimir paused, and swallowed hard.
“It is the consensus of my analysis team that if the Infinite break out and come into possession of any average star system at this point in time, we will be facing an existential threat to not merely the Laian Republic or the Wendira Grand Hive…but to galactic civilization itself.”
Chapter Five
There was a personal message for Rin in the dump of files from Tan!Stalla’s task force as well. He took the time before Tan!Shallegh presented everything to the Wendira and the Laians to seclude himself in his quarters to watch it.
He didn’t have a lot of time, but he wanted to see Morgan.
She looked sufficiently identical in the video she’d sent him that he suspected it had been recorded within minutes of the official report. This message wasn’t official, however, so she was spending less effort to conceal her exhaustion.
“Hey, Rin,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t manage to send anything sooner. I hit the ground running here and… Well, I’ve barely slept. I’m recording this for you, then I have a message for Victoria, then I’m going to fall over.”
Victoria Antonova was Morgan’s girlfriend, the long-term partner she’d already had when Rin had met her. The recognition of their long separations had led them to have an officially open relationship—and Victoria was actually married to a third woman, while being very firm that she was still Morgan’s partner as well.
Rin had been Morgan’s technically-secondary-but-physically-present partner for a while now, but he still couldn’t pretend he understood the full complexities of the situation. He understood enough of what applied to him to be happy, which was more than enough.
“I hope…” She sighed. “I hope you’re doing okay. I haven’t heard anything from you, either,” she pointed out. “I’m getting everything filtered through the formal reports that Tan!Stalla is getting, but it sounds like things aren’t going quite the way we’d hoped.
“I know you and Ki!Tana made it safely, and for that I thank whoever is listening.” She smiled tiredly at him. “There’s a lot of things to say, and I’m never sure what’s most important. But I’m also going to bury some work in here.”
Rin chuckled. He’d figured. He and Morgan had met dealing with the Great Mother, and work had always been at the heart of their connection, even as their personal relationship had grown.
“You know more about the Great Mother than anyone there,” she reminded him. “You’re the only person to have studied all the Alavan iconography and suchlike we have on it, too. You know more about that thing than any of us, and I think that’s relevant right now.
“But the differences between the Infinite and the Mother might be more important. I don’t know enough… I don’t have enough data here to guess what those are beyond the basic technical distinctions.
“That the Mother didn’t birth bioforms with reactionless drives and singularity guns tells me she was missing something. You… I
don’t know, but you could probably say if that was intentional or not.”
There was a long pause, which Rin used to consider the suggestion.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” she repeated. “My understanding is that Tan!Shallegh wants you as his advisor, so I won’t see you soon. Hopefully before too long, but hopefully for good reasons.”
She forced a smile, but he could tell it was forced.
“Sorry, I…meant to have more to say, but I’m wiped.” She blew the recorders a kiss. “I need to record for Victoria before I collapse. Talk soon.”
The image faded away, leaving Rin with both a heart-aching sense of longing…and a mind whirring with possible interpretations of the data they had on the Great Mother’s birth.
His brain was still whirring as Tan!Shallegh played a condensed version of Morgan’s report for Tidirok and Oxtashah.
“We have time,” Tidirok finally noted. “That is good news. We have ships coming up from the core fleets as we speak.”
“Forgive me, Eleventh Voice, but my understanding is that the entire Laian Republic fleet only numbers about six hundred war-dreadnoughts, correct?” Tan!Shallegh said. “One hundred twenty billion tons of capital ships?”
Tidirok’s eyes flickered toward Oxtashah.
“Something like that,” he conceded grimly.
Rin suspected Tan!Shallegh was being intentionally vague.
“There are single bioforms in the Astoroko Nebula that outmass your entire fleet, armed with weapons that can fire black holes at your ships,” Tan!Shallegh noted. “How do you plan on containing that once the Infinite do have hyperdrives?”
“Carefully,” Tidirok replied. “And with friends. It would be easier if I was not also watching the border for the Wendira.”
And that was why everyone was still there. The Wendira used hundred-million-ton star hives, supercarriers stuffed full of close-range starfighters piloted by short-lived Drones, instead of the war-dreadnoughts—but Rin’s understanding was that the hundred-and-twenty-billion-ton number was probably about right for them, too.
Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) Page 3
