Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9)

by Glynn Stewart

  “But they are, mechanically and materially, an Alavan jump drive. Which means if there is one goddamn thing in the entire fucking universe that the Infinite could detect, no matter what we did, it’s a goddamn starkiller.”

  The miniature versions, the Final Dragon weapons she’d carried on Defiance, might be safe. But the regular destroyer-sized weapons were straight-up, barely modified Alavan star drives. The Infinite knew their old enemy better than anyone else still living.

  “They saw right through our stealth fields because eight of our ships, the weapons that were the entire purpose of our mission, were basically brilliant beacons to their scanners,” Morgan concluded.

  “And now the starkillers are gone, they can’t see us nearly as well.”

  “I don’t like the price, but that might be handy, since we’ve already paid it,” Rogers said grimly. “What do we do?”

  Morgan looked at the three red splotches on the display and sighed.

  “I wish I had coms with the rest of the galaxy,” she admitted. They weren’t even receiving messages. The distorting effect of this many stars in close conjunction was blocking starcom reception as well as hyperfold transmission.

  “We don’t even know what happened with Swarm Charlie, and we can’t tell anyone that our mission is a bust,” she continued. “All we can do is save ourselves, realizing that everyone is going to think we’re dead.”

  “That sounds like you have a plan, sir,” Rogers pointed out.

  “It does, doesn’t it?” Morgan murmured, studying the display and its shaded error zone around their trip—and the overlay marking the chaos that the rosette was inflicting on hyperspace scanners.

  “We’re at the narrowest part of the impermeable zone created between realspace and hyperspace by the rosette,” she said. “It’s thirty light-cycles across here—larger inside the stars than outside, constructive interference being what it is.

  “The rosette’s radiation and gravity patterns also screw with realspace sensors, though not as badly, and will augment the stealth fields’ effects.”

  The rosette was also a full light-year across. Tiny in the grand scheme of things, especially for a formation of a dozen blue stars, but immense by any practical standard.

  “We go inside the rosette,” Morgan decided aloud. “We use it to reinforce our stealth fields and we run dark at a random angle. For…a hundred cycles, at least.

  “Even the Infinite can’t blockade every possible exit from the Eye of the Astoroko Nebula,” she said. “So, we go deep and we run long. If we’re in the impermeable zone and hiding behind stars for a hundred cycles, that’s a fifty-to-sixty-light-cycle-radius zone we can emerge in.

  “Everyone outside is going to think we’re dead,” she repeated. “But we have the supplies for it. Hell, we have the supplies to do it and run all the way back to the Imperium if things really go to shit in those hundred days.”

  “I don’t…hate it,” Rogers said. “Koumans? Your thoughts.”

  The battleship’s Captain looked as exhausted as the flag staff.

  “I’m not sure any of us are thinking clearly, but it makes sense,” she conceded. “If nothing else, we dramatically expand the error radius of their scans and force them to either commit more ships or spread them more thinly.

  “And if they spread them thin enough, we might be able to punch out and make a run for it.”

  “It pretty much doesn’t matter what we do; we’re going to have to fight our way out,” Morgan told them. “But the more we confuse them, the less forces they have directly in position, and the more likely we are to make it through.”

  “It makes sense to me,” Koumans said. “And it’s your call, Division Lord.”

  That sent a chill down Morgan’s spine, and she looked at the map and the icons of her fleet. Even with her losses, there were still thirty ships under her command. The better part of forty thousand people.

  “Our mission has already failed,” Morgan noted. “The only task left to me is to extract as much of my command intact as possible. This is the best choice we’ve got. Ort—work with the navigators, get the course set.

  “Once we’re closer to the stars, we’ll stand down to status three and send most of the crews to sleep,” she continued. “We all need rest, or this is going to get worse fast.”

  Chapter Sixty

  Morgan hadn’t planned on sleeping for twelve hours, but that was how long her communicator said she’d been asleep when she finally woke up. A quick check of the ship’s status told her that they hadn’t quite made it to the theoretical line that marked the “surface” of the rosette, but also that nothing was pursuing them.

  She took the time to properly shower and re-braid her hair before putting on her uniform and returning to the flag deck. The short ritual made her feel both cleaner and more human.

  Everything she could do to sharpen her mind was important now. It would be another thirty hours, in her judgment, before they were entirely safe from detection. They wouldn’t—they couldn’t—be at battle stations for all of that time, but that was the time where quick decisions might still be needed.

  Only a portion of her staff was on duty when she stepped onto the bridge, exactly as it should have been. Ort was the senior officer on duty, rising as she entered and gesturing for her to join him.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Division Lord,” he greeted her. I didn’t want to wake you, but there’s something strange going on.”

  “Good strange or bad strange?” Morgan asked, standing beside the Ivida’s chair and looking at the man’s screens—currently showing a series of visual reports from Odysseus’s Fleet Operations Center.

  “Strange strange, I think,” Ort said after a moment’s thought. “Take a look. This is Delta-Six, the third pursuit swarm to come into regular space after us, and their course over the last six hours.”

  Morgan noticed the time stamps first.

  “This is nearly real-time,” she noted. “How?”

  “This is our vulnerable period, so I took the initiative to lay a series of drones behind us,” Ort told her. “The farthest drones can’t hyperfold-transmit to us, but they can transmit to the drones along the chain. As we pass through the rosette, it will become impossible to sustain even that, but it gives us eyes close to the enemy now…and I think it may have just proven its worth.

  “Well done; show me the course data,” Morgan said.

  Delta-Six’s course was much what it had been before initially, a series of carefully calculated curves that limited the STG’s ability to escape without detection. And then, suddenly, the Swarm’s course sharpened into a straight line.

  Morgan checked the vector and raised an eyebrow.

  “Have they entered hyperspace yet?” The course was straight away from the rosette, likely making certain they’d cleared the impermeable zone where entering hyperspace would be impossible.

  “Not yet, but that’s my read of their course as well,” Ort told her. “It’ll be another hour before I have data on Delta-Five and Delta-Four, but…if they’ve both broken off pursuit as well, something’s going on.”

  “Something happened we don’t know about,” Morgan agreed. “The Queen can’t afford to tie up a thousand bioforms hunting for us. But…” Morgan shook her head. “The Infinite have more units than we can count, don’t they? They don’t even have any of the big ones in the pursuit swarms; they’re just Threes and Fours.”

  Just ships between one and one hundred kilometers in length. Dealing with the Infinite was completely throwing off her sense of scale.

  “My guess would be that somebody else just hit the edge of the nebula and they’re redeploying to secure their perimeter,” Ort told her. “Or…they’re worried someone’s going to.”

  “If Swarm Charlie just got its ass kicked, they might be worried about their perimeter,” Morgan agreed. “But they’ve got a lot of resources. In their place, Charlie would have had to be completely wrecked before I started redeploying the p
eople hunting the guys in my territory.

  “That sounds like the Wendira may have surprised them?” Ort asked.

  “Have the group hold position here,” Morgan ordered. “We’ll wait for the data update on Delta-Four and Delta-Five.

  “If all three Delta groups have entered hyperspace, we don’t need to hide inside the rosette. If there’s no one hunting us, I’ll take the risk of making an outright run for it!”

  Two hours later, Morgan had woken up her flag staff and everyone was gathered around her in a briefing room—including Irisha and Protan, attending by hologram.

  “All three of the pursuit swarms broke off two and a half hours ago,” she told them. “Simultaneously, so far as we can tell, which says they have some kind of FTL com that works in this mess.

  “Most importantly, though, that means we are no longer being blockaded. I am inclined to take the task group and make an immediate run for open space,” she said. “I wanted to check in with everyone before we make quite so drastic a change in plans.”

  “I prefer it to spending a hundred cycles running in the dark,” Irisha replied. “But my people are no longer truly capable of contributing to a fight. My star intruders have only defensive weapons left, and all of my remaining escorts are damaged.”

  “My cruisers are undamaged,” Protan said. “We can make the run, and we can position ourselves to protect what remains of the Wendira fleet.”

  Her holographic gaze focused on her people’s ancient enemy. “Your people have borne the brunt of this mission, Sub-Commandant, but I believe my people can keep them safe for the way home.”

  Morgan was actually touched. Fighting on the same side seemed to be doing a lot of good for the Wendira and the Laians. It gave her hope.

  “We are not sure how well our stealth fields work against the Infinite in hyperspace,” Ort warned. “This is a risk.”

  “It will always be a risk,” Morgan replied. “It is possible, even, that this is a trap. They could easily have recognized what we were doing and created what appeared to be a tempting opportunity to escape.

  “We’re going to watch our anomaly scanners with extreme care as we get close to our portal point,” she told them. “Hopefully, we should see any ambush before we transit into hyperspace.

  “But I think we have to take the risk. A hundred cycles in here will leave the families of all of our people thinking they are dead. A hundred cycles of running and hiding will damage the mental and physical health of our crews.

  “If we have the opportunity to break out, I feel we have to take it,” she concluded. “But…I am still prepared to accept arguments as to why we shouldn’t.”

  The briefing room was quiet and she looked around. There were half a dozen species in the room. A dozen in her task group. They mostly had different cultures—the A!Tol and the Imperial Races were a special case—and different assessments of risk and courage.

  All of them returned her gaze.

  “I think we have to try, sir,” Bethany Rogers finally said, speaking for all of them. “We owe it to our people to get them to safety—and we owe it to the people we left outside the nebula to report on our mission.

  “It’s a risk, but we’re all soldiers. We made our choices when we swore our oaths and put on our uniforms. Our duty is out there, Division Lord Casimir, and I think we need to go find it.”

  “Unanimous, then?” Morgan asked her officers with a small smile. “I wasn’t quite expecting that, but I was hoping for it.

  “Talk to your departments; put together your operations plans. We’re still probably going to have to punch through a picket, though we may be able to dodge around everybody. Plan for a running fight, people.

  “But plan for getting us all out of here.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  There had been no Infinite bioforms visible on their scanners, even through the daisy-chained probes, for a full cycle—over twenty-three hours—when Morgan finally ordered her people to make a run for it.

  “We watch the starcom receivers closely as we move,” she ordered as the ships came back up to their full speed. “We’re still cycles away from picking up a signal, but the sooner we have an update on the outside world, the better.”

  “If they pulled all their units back, Swarm Charlie probably got smashed up pretty well,” Rogers estimated. “But I’d love confirmation of that.”

  “We won’t get it until we’re at least a realspace light-year from the rosette,” Morgan said. “But I want to know, not guess.”

  “They could still have the entirety of Swarm Delta sitting just on the other side of the hyperspace barrier,” her chief of staff warned.

  “I know,” Morgan agreed. “And we’re going to be ready to turn and run at any sign of trouble. We’ve got a full watch on every anomaly scanner in the task group. We’ll know if it’s an ambush.”

  “Will we know before it’s too late?” Rogers asked.

  Morgan glanced around the flag deck to make sure no one was close enough to overhear their half-whispered conversation.

  “Forty-sixty,” she admitted. “But we owe it to our people to try to make it out of this mess. The sooner we’re in open space, the happier I’ll be. If I never see this nebula again, it will be too soon.”

  “It has certainly made an impression, hasn’t it?” Rogers agreed. “We’re over thirty hours from being able to enter hyperspace, sir. Standard watches and schedules?”

  “Until the final hour,” Morgan confirmed. “Once we’re close enough that they can come out of hyperspace inside our weapons’ range, I want everyone at battle stations until we’ve made the transition.”

  “At least we’re not running in blind.”

  “We are very much running blind,” Morgan confessed. “But we’re never not going to be running blind, Bethany. It’s this or three goddamn months in this place, and I am so, so done with this nebula and this goddamn necklace of stars.”

  Rogers chuckled softly.

  “I don’t think anyone in the STG is going to argue with you there,” she admitted. “I’m down for the run, sir; you already knew that.”

  “Everyone is,” Morgan said. Not many people wouldn’t be down for trying to escape being trapped by the enemy. It was her job, as Division Lord and task group commander, to judge whether running was the right call.

  She was…eighty-ish percent sure she’d made the right call.

  Despite her own orders to make sure that everyone got enough rest, Morgan ended up having to take medication to sleep around hour twenty-four.

  She returned to the bridge, once again having taken the time to shower, braid her hair and even do her makeup. She made sure to look her best as she led forty thousand people to an unknown fate she was unquestionably responsible for.

  “Anything on the anomaly scanners?” was the first thing she asked.

  “Nothing,” Ort replied. “Of course, we’re still a light-hour from the edge of the impermeability zone. It looks like their singularity teleporters have around the same three-light-thousandth-cycle range as our hyperspace missiles, so it’s not until we’re in that area that we’re in danger.”

  And then they’d detect anything that had been in place since at least five minutes before. If it was a trap…they’d see it coming, but Morgan wasn’t sure they’d see it coming in time.

  “Take the group to battle stations,” she ordered. “We’re in the final stretch of the realspace run. Full stealth-field checks on every ship.”

  With other ships to hand, that involved dropping the com links temporarily and doing everything they could to find the ship without knowing where it was. At the range of the task group’s formation, the stealth fields were defeatable, but it still allowed them to assess if the systems were working as expected.

  “On it,” Ort agreed.

  There were no lights and alarms on the flag deck to denote battle stations, but Morgan could hear the faint echo of the alarm echoing through the rest of the ship.

  Her
staff and their teams filed in over the next minute—fast enough to tell her that everyone had been anticipating the call to battle stations. Within ninety seconds, every station on the flag deck was full, and she had a virtual link up to the battleship’s bridge.

  “All ships have checked in,” Ort reported. “Laian cruisers are assuming escort positions around the Wendira ships.”

  If nothing else came of this mission, that sight offered Morgan hope for the future. The Laian warships had formed a defensive sphere around the star intruders and escorts, interlacing the defensive drones from both fleets and positioning the Republic ships to take any hits aimed at the Hive vessels.

  Enemies all too recently, today the Laians were positioning themselves to defend the more-vulnerable Wendira ships.

  “All ships in formation,” Rogers told Morgan, a few moments after the chief of staff took her own seat. “All stealth fields have passed the testing sequences. We are as good to go as we’re going to be.”

  “Thank you,” Morgan said calmly, leaning back in her chair. A single command brought a timer onto the main display, counting down the thousandth-cycles until they could enter hyperspace—and a second timer, on the screens of her own seat, counting down the minutes.

  “Two hundredth-cycles to portal,” Ort announced.

  Twenty-eight minutes. Too long for Morgan to hold her breath. Too short for her to not feel completely on edge along with every other member of the task group.

  “Anomaly scanners are still clear?” she asked.

  “So far,” the Ivida confirmed.

  Fourteen light-minutes. They weren’t quite into the danger zone, but they were close enough that they should, in theory, be able to see an ambushing force. The problem was that the anomaly scanner was lightspeed-limited in realspace.