“And vaporize everything we’ve done,” Rin concluded. “But we can rig up the weapon without one?”
“We can. Assuming we find a teleporter station,” she reminded him. “The control center is a win—but my god, do we still need to get lucky.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
In the being walking across the landing bay toward them, Rin Dunst saw the reason some people gave for the enduring war between the Wendira and the Laians. The stranger was an older Wendira, his head broader than the Warriors and Royals Rin had seen to date, with his wings folded around him in a shape that distinctly resembled the shell of a Laian.
There was no way the Worker-caste Wendira could be mistaken for a Laian or vice versa, but Rin had to admit the resemblance existed. It would have taken a spectacular degree of arrogance for that resemblance to have created a reason for a war…but people of all species could manage that.
“Dr. Rin Dunst, I was only just briefed on your team’s arrival a few hours ago,” the Worker told him excitedly, the translator defaulting to English units for non-Imperial time counting. “I am Castellash, the senior scientist and expedition leader here in Skiefail. I hear you have worked on a similar such facility before?”
Even the translation device was having trouble keeping up with the rapid-fire speech of the excited Wendira, and Rin found himself grinning.
“I haven’t, Director Castellash,” he told the Wendira. “But several of my team members have, and I am fully up to date on the work we did on the other swarm.”
What he hadn’t known before they’d started the trip to Skiefail, he knew now. Reviewing all of their documentation, down to the raw reports from individual technicians, would have taken more time than he had—but he’d had five days. He knew enough.
He hoped.
“Of course, of course.” Castellash’s wings flickered out for a moment, removing any resemblance to a Laian, before wrapping around him again. “We have done nothing except catalog and observe here, Dr. Dunst, for three hundred years. To potentially see some of these systems activated… That is incredible!”
“I need to see that catalog,” Kelly Lawrence interrupted. “As soon as we can. Do you have a listing with images of all of the platforms?”
“Of course, of course, yes,” Castellash told her. “Do you wish to see your quarters first—”
“I need to see that catalog now,” Lawrence told him. “If certain facilities are not intact, this has been a long trip for nothing. The sooner I can confirm that one way or another, the better.”
“Of course, of course!” the Wendira agreed. He waved a claw, and several shorter Drones crossed to them. “My staff will see your team to their quarters. If you and Dr…”
“Commander,” Lawrence corrected. “Lesser Commander Lawrence, Imperial Naval Intelligence. Dr. Dunst and I will both look at this catalog.”
Lawrence had been learning command voice in the Navy, Rin concluded. He wasn’t going to complain too loudly, though.
“Agreed,” he told Castellash. “There is no time for us to play games or dance around the point. Show our people their rooms, but the team leads need to get to work.”
He waved Mok over, the Tosumi joining them with a carefully brisk pace.
“The Wendira have a catalog of the intact platforms,” he told Mok. “We need to review it first.”
“Agreed,” Mok said. “Where are we going?”
“This way, please,” Castellash told them. “We have prepared a working space for your team; it seems we shall get started.”
Castellash led them to a space that would do quite handily for their needs. Large chunks of the Wendira space station were clearly prefabricated—and not in regular use. That had allowed them to take an external gallery and assemble fifty consoles and several laboratories’ worth of equipment.
“You have full access to all of our files, data and analysis from here,” the Wendira told them. “We were instructed to hold back nothing.”
“What will we have at our disposal for spacecraft and other resources?” Rin asked, gesturing his team leads toward the computers.
“Everything we have,” Castellash told them. “My entire expedition has been placed at your disposal, Dr. Dunst. We have eight shuttles and four larger sublight spacecraft but no hyper-capable craft.
“My understanding is that you are to have unlimited access to our hyperfold communication network as well,” he added. “I am the only person on this station with that access normally, but I understand that you need to consult with support in the Imperium.”
“Exactly,” Rin told the Wendira. “There are key members of the team that worked on the other Dyson swarm that are not here but are available to answer questions. We have the best we could assemble from the resources on hand—but we were lucky to even have eleven people who’d worked on the project.”
“Found the catalog,” Lawrence announced. An image of a station appeared above the console she was working at. “Passing access to Mok.”
“Set up a console for me as well,” Rin ordered. “I know what we’re looking for.”
“How can I assist?” Castellash asked.
“Make sure we have that full access,” Rin told the Wendira. “I could use an inventory of assets to help sort out what we have to work with—and any maps you have of the station this one is attached to.
“That control platform is one of our key pieces. We need to confirm that the systems we need are intact, but its existence is a good sign.”
“What happens if what you’re looking for is gone, Doctor?” Castellash asked, glancing worriedly at where Lawrence and Mok were already flipping through images of the various platforms.
“It depends on which piece, Director,” Rin told him. “This facility is attached to one of our two critical components. If we can’t find the plasma collectors but we do find teleporters, we can probably achieve our target, but it will be a more fragile system.
“If we don’t find teleporters, even having the collectors and the controller won’t do us any good.”
“Then I hope we discovered the stations you need. I lost shell-brothers at Tohrohsail,” Castellash admitted. “I fear for the Hive.”
“I fear for the galaxy, Castellash,” Rin told him. “So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if we have the right ruined ancient space stations.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Anomalies detected at maximum range,” Rogers reported. “Estimates put them just inside the Astoroko Nebula.”
“Understood,” Morgan replied, checking the main display. “What have we got?”
The holotank was showing the estimated position of the special task group—they weren’t close enough to any stars to definitively locate themselves at that moment—as they approached the Astoroko Nebula in hyperspace.
“Looks like they’ve positioned bioforms along the perimeter of the nebula,” Rogers told her. “We’re picking up more as we approach. They look to be separated by about a realspace light-year.”
“Even so, that’s a lot of ships to be using as a defensive screen,” Morgan noted. “Any sign of more major movement?”
“Not right now. We’re only going to get eyes on a small portion of the nebula as we go in. Unless our timing is just right, we won’t see any deployments,” the chief of staff replied.
“I know. I can hope,” Morgan said. “Let’s adjust our course to cut right between their sentinels at maximum range. They shouldn’t be able to see us through the stealth fields, but we have problems seeing them in hyperspace as it is.”
“What about immobile scanner units?” Morgan’s new operations officer, an Ivida named Ort, asked. “We can only detect them in hyperspace while they’re moving.”
“We can’t do anything about them,” Morgan admitted to him. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled as we close, in case we see something, but so long as they’re staying still, they’re invisible to us.
“We have to plan with what we can see and hope that wh
at we can’t see is still far enough away that we’re covered.”
Against the Laian hyperspatial anomaly scanners the Infinite system was presumably based on, their stealth fields were good to sixty light-seconds in both realspace and hyperspace. That should be enough, but Morgan didn’t know what tricks the Infinite might have added to their stolen sensor systems.
“If we adjust as specified, we’ll add about four twentieth-cycles to our trip to the first star in the rosette,” Rogers warned.
“I doubt this will be the last diversion from our planned course,” Morgan replied. “Make the course change and watch for surprises.
“We are in the Infinite’s territory now.”
Morgan caught herself holding her breath as the task group approached the Infinite’s sensor perimeter. There wasn’t anything else out there other than the scouts, not that they could see, at least.
But she was grimly certain that if those sentinels detected her ships, she and all her people were doomed. She’d flee any pursuit out of hyperspace, where she could engage with her entire arsenal, but that wouldn’t be enough. Not against the immense numbers available to their enemy.
“Closest approach in forty seconds,” Ort announced. “No change in profile on the sensor screen. No immobile units detected. Everything appears clear.”
Seconds ticked by.
“New contact,” Ort snapped. “Big contact. No…two contacts. Separate. Resolving now.”
“In the tank, Commander,” Morgan ordered.
A chunk of the big holodisplays shimmered, then resolved into the icons of unknown contacts. Two of them, close together but on different vectors.
“That’s two swarms; confirm the vectors,” Morgan said. She could see something to them, but she wanted confirmation.
“Labeling Charlie and Delta,” Ort confirmed. “Swarm Charlie is on an exit vector from the nebula; she is heading out at sixty percent of lightspeed. Vector is…toward Wendira space.”
“Wonderful,” Morgan said grimly. “Rogers? Let’s start plotting a point to drop out of hyperspace and phone home. Ort, confirm that line and get me one on Delta.”
“Swarm Delta looks like a defensive force,” the ops officer told her. “Their velocity is significantly lower, and they are actively accelerating on what looks like a circular course. They are orbiting the rosette at two hyperspace light-cycles.”
“That’ll be between one and three light-years, depending on where they are in the nebula, right?” Rogers asked.
“Yes, sir,” Ort confirmed.
“If we’re seeing Delta at this range, they’re big,” Morgan said quietly. They were still five light-cycles, over a week’s travel for her ships, from the rosette.
“Charlie is much closer and was lined up with them for a few minutes, from our perspective,” Ort told her. “That’s why it looked like one contact. But…yeah. Estimated minimum mass for Swarm Delta is five trillion tons.”
Morgan swallowed a silent whistle. That had to be multiple Category Sixes at least. Mass wasn’t as clear an indicator of capability for the Infinite as it was for, say, Core Power ships, but it helped.
The entire Laian space navy massed about half a trillion tons, and that was about standard for a Core Power. Swarm Delta outmassed the entire musterable fleets of the three nations currently engaged with the Infinite by over three to one.
“Swarm Charlie is smaller, but still…” Ort was Ivida. His face didn’t move, but he shook his head from side to side as he stared down at his screen. “Twenty percent uncertainty, but I make it around a trillion tons.”
“We definitely need to drop out of hyperspace and send a message,” Morgan decided. “It’ll cost us a few more twentieth-cycles, but we need to give Delta a chance to move out of our way, anyway.”
“How soon?” Rogers asked.
“Get us half a hyperspace light-cycle away from the sensor screen,” Morgan ordered. “Then we’ll bring the entire group out of hyperspace for a twentieth-cycle. Long enough to phone home, though not long enough to get replies.
“We do need to keep moving.”
Morgan considered her audience carefully for several seconds as she stared at the recorder, then shrugged.
“Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh, you will be receiving attached sensor data from all of my ships,” she told the First Fleet Lord. “We have confirmed the presence of a screen of sensor sentinels in hyperspace through the edge of the Astoroko Nebula.
“Based off the dispersion and presence of those ships, I would judge that only stealth ships have any chance of penetrating the nebula undetected.”
She had taken a risk by bringing her fleet out of hyperspace, but the allies needed to know Swarm Charlie was in motion.
“More immediately important is that we have detected a new swarm moving out into Wendira space, estimated at a mass of one trillion tons,” she warned him. “It’s hard to estimate even hull numbers, let alone types or classes, at the ranges we’re scanning, so I can’t say much more than that.
“Even so, that force represents an existential threat to our ally. I feel it was worth taking the risk of dropping out of hyperspace to send this message.”
She drummed her fingers on the desk for a moment.
“We also now have a better idea of what the Queen has mustered to defend herself,” she continued. “Swarm Delta represents a nodal defense force of some five trillion tons. I suspect there is more than one such force securing the core of the nebula, but so far, our stealth fields appear to be holding up to Infinite scans.
“I intend to proceed with my mission as previously instructed. I do not expect to be able to make long-distance hyperfold transmissions once we have entered the immediate area of the rosette.
“Calculations suggest a minimum thirty-six-hour realspace approach to be able to fire each starkiller, but the rosette prevents anything else.” She shook her head. “Currently, the plan is to deploy the starkillers under automatic control at eighteen light-hours, but that may or may not survive contact with reality.
“We will not be able to complete our mission before Swarm Charlie engages the Wendira,” she admitted. “It is…uncertain whether Swarm Delta and any other defense nodes will be materially impacted by the destruction of the rosette, so we may still be facing an utterly overwhelming threat if our mission succeeds.
“This will be my last transmission until we have exited the rosette,” Morgan told her superior. “I will do all within my power to complete this mission and bring my people out alive. If we succeed, it should be relatively clearly visible to anomaly scanners at some distance.
“If we don’t…” She sighed. “If we fail, you won’t hear from us again, Fleet Lord. I hope to speak again in a few cycles.
“Gods speed you, Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh.”
Chapter Fifty
Going through seven thousand space stations’ worth of photos, three-dimensional models and energy profiles took Rin and his people over a day. Even dividing it into smaller and smaller chunks as more of their people came into the lab, it was still a slow, painstaking process.
In theory, identifying a solar-collector station was easy, and they didn’t care about the solar-collector stations. In practice, even the Alava didn’t manage exact duplication of their Dyson swarm units and every station was slightly different.
Add in that at least some of the “space stations” in the Dyson swarm were actually ships—both defensive and utility craft that had settled into stable orbits when their crews and engines had died—plus a dizzying array of additional support stations that existed in similar numbers to the control and teleporter stations, every station had to be examined in detail.
“All right,” he finally said when the last reports cycled into his computer. “Everybody, we did it.”
His team looked blearily back at him. He’d told people to take the rest they needed, which seemed to have resulted in no one actually taking enough rest—including him, if he was being honest.
“
We’ve now gone through seven thousand, one hundred and thirty-four individual contacts,” he told them all. “The Wendira did a fantastic job of cataloging all of this.”
Castellash and several of his senior people had spent several hours reviewing the identification criteria Lawrence had put together, and then joined in. They looked even more wiped than the rest of his people, but the station director’s wings fluttered in appreciation as Rin recognized their efforts.
“The good news is that we found an intact teleporter station,” Rin noted. “Two of them, in fact, and three more damaged ones where we might be able to rig up the teleporters to work, at least.
“Bad news is that we haven’t found a single plasma collector,” he told them. “So, we’re going to rig up those teleporters on the damaged stations if we can.
“Commander Lawrence, do you want to explain the problem?”
Lawrence stepped up to join Rin, then turned and faced the team sitting at their consoles.
“We don’t even begin to understand the science—or even the hardware—of an Alavan teleporter system,” she told them. “What we do understand is, roughly, how an Alavan teleporter with half its functions obliterated by the Fall operates.
“And the key point to that is that one end of the transfer is always going to physically be at the teleporter. The system the Taljzi rigged up pulled plasma from a collector station in low orbit of the star.
“What exactly that station was originally intended to do is unknown, but what it did for the purposes of this system was limit how much plasma was being pulled into the teleporter station. The Taljzi reinforced the receiver chamber and added their own containment fields, making it capable of handling the amount of plasma they were pulling from the collector station.
Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) Page 25
