by C. Gockel
Volka blinked.
“He couldn’t slow the oscillator with cold,” Central said.
Carl chirped. “That’s her clock.”
Central continued, “It’s too well protected. Nor could we stop the countdown. But he could make it so that—” Central named a number so large it made Volka’s eyes cross. “—vibrations are a ‘second.’ He changed the definition. I had not thought of that. Since all of the major and minor functions of the station run off time as I define it, the meltdown has been delayed. I am going to have to reprogram all the toasters or risk fires.” She began rattling off a long list of other things she would have to do for clocks, coffeemakers, security patch updates, and more. Volka was too overwhelmed to hear it all.
“Lieutenant Young is pinging everyone,” Bracelet said.
“Answer.”
The lieutenant’s voice sounded in her ear. “Do not sync your chronometers to Central.”
“That would be unwise,” Central agreed.
Jerome’s voice was tense again. “The door to the mechanical room is about to be breached. They’re not safe yet.”
“I’ve got this,” Central said. There was a pause that dragged on too long.
“What’s happening, Jerome?” Volka asked.
His fingers danced over the tablet and sound rushed out of it, a sort of whirring noise. “She’s turning on the spare ColdSWEEPERs in the mechanical room.”
“I want to see!” Carl said, and Volka picked him up and went over to stare at the tablet. There were eight windows open on the screen—eight sets of eyes from eight suits, Volka realized. She scanned desperately for Sixty and saw him sitting on the floor, eyes vacant. A pair of hands were on his shoulder, but she couldn’t tell whose.
Central’s voice was tinny as she spoke into the room in the screen. “Take cover.” Whoever was holding Sixty’s shoulders crouched above him, shielding him. The eight images flickered with the orange light of phaser fire. “Thank you,” Volka whispered soundlessly to Sixty’s protector, and Carl spoke into her mind. “It’s James.”
Hovers roared and ColdSWEEPER units swept into the hallway.
“Everyone is all right, Volka,” Jerome said, hand on his temple. “The ColdSWEEPER units are under Central’s control. They’re clearing out the Security ‘bots.”
Volka exhaled, heard a ping, and Bracelet exclaimed, “It’s Sixty!” and connected without being prompted.
Sixty’s voice rolled through the speaker into her helmet. “Volka?”
“You’re safe!” she said.
There was a pause, and she remembered she wasn’t speaking to him over a phone; she wasn’t hearing his speech—she was hearing a direct link with his mind. There was no inhale or exhale of breath to overhear, no way to detect emotion. And yet... “You’re not safe,” she said.
Carl cheeped worriedly, and she remembered his howl.
“I’m cold,” he replied.
Jerome had said that the icy fortress of Reich was almost as cold as the outside. 6T9 was sensitive to cold with his “not-as-efficient metabolism.” He’d almost completely shut down when they’d rescued Sundancer on Libertas. Volka’s humanish self and Carl had been fine.
“Can you come back aboard?” she asked.
There was a crackle like static. But then he said, “No, listen—”
6T9’s voice came over the tablet and through her headphones. “Central has told me that Reich was very close to faster-than-light travel…had maybe even achieved it.”
There were murmurs in the ship.
6T9 continued. “All of the infected withdrew to a hangar.” There was a pause. If she were next to him, she suspected she would hear a slow intake of breath. “The ships there were being altered to be faster-than-light vessels. Let me show you where it is…”
On the tablet, one of the view screens became a map of the research station.
Young’s voice crackled through Bracelet, “That’s ten clicks away.” The screen lit with a tiny schematic of directions from their location to the hangar. “Central, do you have control of the corridors between here and there?”
“Negative. Nor am I able to open security doors or have access to sensory data in that locale. I am attempting to regain control and have repair ‘bots swarming in the ducts to the location now.”
“We need to get there as soon as possible,” 6T9 said. “There might be…information…there that is time sensitive. The ships themselves and…other sources of intel.”
Volka tilted her head, wondering what “other sources of intel” meant, and why he hesitated to say it out loud.
Carl’s necklace crackled. “He means cadavers whose neural ports still hold a charge and can be linked to.”
Volka shivered at the grisly image.
“Yes,” said Young, boisterous voice faint in Bracelet’s speaker. “If we take the northern corridor—”
“No,” Volka said, imagining the team facing phaser fire and Sixty shambling along, stiff and cold. “Send us.” Her hands tightened on Carl, and her eyes narrowed at the tablet Dr. Patrick was holding. It controlled the guns mounted to Sundancer’s armor. She’d blast into the hangar if she had to.
Carl spoke into her mind. “No, we can’t blast our way in. If the hangar is exposed to vacuum, any evidence remaining will be destroyed.”
“I may be able to open the doors,” Central said. “I can reroute all repair ‘bots to the hangar doors. But that will mean there will be none disarming the defenses in the hangar—you will be fired upon.”
“Lieutenant,” said Jerome. “Send us. Now.”
There was a pause. A hiss of static. “We shouldn’t risk coming aboard until we go through decon. Go.”
Volka focused on the holo and closed her eyes. She felt the press of acceleration in her heels.
The new lady Marine—Rhinehart—had stayed aboard. Now she said, “Time to test our guns,” with such gusto Volka could hear the smile in her voice.
Volka’s eyes opened.
Doctor Patrick gulped audibly but, moving his hand over a tablet in his hand, said, “We’re ready.”
“Good, because we’re there,” said Jerome. The holo showed what looked like a seam in a dome of ice just below the ship. It wasn’t ice, though, she realized, it was a frosted metal door, perhaps thirty-five meters in diameter. Around the circumference, at the base of the dome, there was thick, solid ice. Most of the surface of the planet appeared covered in icy powder—this was ice that had been liquid not long ago—smooth and gray, dusted with flakes.
Sixty’s voice whispered over Bracelet. “The dome was covered in snow. They siphoned the heat out of the rest of the compound to melt the ice on top of the hangar more quickly.”
“No,” Volka said, thinking of the piles of bodies she’d seen in the tablet over Jerome’s shoulder. “They did it as punishment, to be cruel.”
There was a moment of silence. “I think you’re right. Central?” Sixty asked. “How long until you can open the airlock?”
“Three point five minutes,” Central replied.
Volka heard the conversation in her helmet’s speaker. The Marines and Dr. Patrick nodded and tapped their temples. They’d heard, too.
Volka rolled on her feet and paced a few steps forward and back, like a caged animal. Queasiness overcame her, fast, and too sudden to be her own—it was Sundancer. The ship was afraid. Carl squeaked mournfully, and Volka knew she’d guessed right. There was only one thing Sundancer was afraid of…the Dark. But where was it? Volka felt a shiver starting at her toes and looked down between her boots. Her vision had a hazy gray edge to it—like she’d seen on Alexis when they rescued her. “The Dark is here.”
Lieutenant Young’s voice filtered through Suit’s speakers. “There are infected down there?”
Carl answered, “No. No humans are alive in the hangar.”
“Weapons!” Volka exclaimed. “There may be Dark weapons in there!”
“Do we go in?” Jerome asked.
Volka looked at Carl. The little werfle’s bewhiskered snout twitched behind his visor. She didn’t know if it was her or him that thought of the bodies piled in the hallway, but the vision filled her mind.
“Yes,” Volka whispered.
“We go in,” Carl finished.
“The door is opening,” Doctor Patrick said.
“Lowering us inside,” Carl replied.
Sundancer dropped into the airlock, and the door sealed above them. Volka surveyed the airlock. There were frosted metal walls and another metal door below them. The only illumination came from a single red warning light, alerting them that the area around them wasn’t pressurized.
Volka slowly turned in a circle. Her vision remained clear. “It’s not in the airlock.” She focused on the floor beneath her feet and her stomach turned over. “It’s down there.” Sundancer, she noted, wasn’t as frightened as she normally was. The ship was…nervous…like Volka herself was, but not panicked. Volka tried to send a rush of reassurance to the ship anyway. The interior hull brightened slightly. The ship trying to reassure her?
The light outside the airlock flashed green. The metal door below them opened blindingly fast, and phaser fire ripped up from a pitch-black room below. Sundancer’s hull shimmered, and in a spot, became translucent where the armor had been blasted away. As the ship lowered, Doctor Patrick said, “Returning fire.”
“No!” Carl cried. “Don’t aim at the cannons!”
Volka’s eyes widened in understanding, and her heart skipped. “Take out the Dark.”
Doctor Patrick ignored her, and phaser fire ripped from the new weapons on Sundancer’s wings into the incoming barrage. “This is my weapons system; I know how to operate it.”
Volka’s lip curled, but Jerome asked, “Where, Volka?”
Turning carefully in place, Volka stopped when she felt bile rise in her throat and as though something rank had entered her suit. Pointing at a hatch in the wall, revealed only by the light of Sundancer’s and Reich’s phaser fire, she exclaimed, “It’s there!” She spun again and forced herself not to vomit when her eyes fell on another hatch. “And there!”
Carl squeaked. “Yes, just about 102 meters—and 302 meters.”
Doctor Patrick shook his head. “I see nothing in those directions that—” And then he gasped. “I’ve lost control of our weapons!”
Phaser fire ripped from Sundancer’s weapons to the first hatch. One blast. Two. A third, and then the door of the hatch fell away, revealing a sort of drone. It lit, zipped forward—and was blasted to sparks and metal shards.
Doctor Patrick shouted at Jerome, “What are you doing? Give me back control of our weapons.”
Jerome shouted back, but Volka didn’t hear what he said. Conventional phaser fire was still tearing through the hangar, shredding Sundancer’s armor where it hit. That didn’t frighten Volka. What made her heart rise into her throat was the drone emerging from the second hatch. It was a metal sphere, not much larger than her hands spread. Almost harmless looking. But staring at it, she imagined the thick smell of decay. It soared toward the ship and she gasped. Just meters from Sundancer’s stern, it exploded in the bright light of Sundancer’s cannon fire. Sundancer’s interior flashed orange, and Volka felt a wave of…smug satisfaction from the ship. Volka herself felt like fresh air had just been pumped into Suit.
“Got both of ‘em,” said the new Marine—Rhinehart, that was her name, wasn’t it? Volka spun to her. Rhinehart’s eyes were blank, and she stood in a parade rest, but she had a feral smile on her lips. Lifting her chin, eyes on nothing, she said, “Taking out the conventional weapons now.”
Jerome was facing down Dr. Patrick. The scientist was shouting at him about the tears in Sundancer’s armor and control of the ship’s weapons and costs. Volka blinked, confused.
Carl explained, “Jerome controls the local ether. The local ether controls Sundancer’s armor and weapons. Jerome switched ether weapon control from our scientist friend to Rhinehart.”
“Yep,” said Rhinehart, smiling again, eyes still eerily empty. Sundancer’s weapons were blasting the conventional phaser cannons in the hangar now—sending fiery sparks and metal flying.
“On whose orders?” Patrick demanded.
Jerome pointed at Volka. “Hers!”
Volka’s eyes went wide. Patrick shouted something about Volka being a civilian and not a member of Fleet.
“Take it up with Young,” Jerome replied calmly. “He said to trust her instincts over yours.”
Volka took a step back, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the doctor. The Marines supported her over him?
Carl spoke into her mind. “They trust you.”
Volka’s brow furrowed. Carl had also warned about the Dark hiding in the hatches.
“They still think of me as a genocidal weasel,” Carl said without any trace of irritation in his thoughts.
Volka scowled.
“They’re not completely wrong, Hatchling,” Carl whispered telepathically.
Turning away from Dr. Patrick, Jerome said, “We have ethernet contact with the others—Central’s ColdSWEEPERs distributed the extenders.”
In Suit, Sixty’s voice came in a whispery rush of static. “Are you safe now?”
Outside of Sundancer, all Volka could see was fire and smoke—fire that could damage Sundancer’s armor but couldn’t hurt the ship. In fact, she was probably enjoying it, based on the brightness of the cabin. “Yes, I think so.”
“There were fifty ships in that particular hangar before Central had her sensors cut off, and 5,342 infected people retreated there. What do you see?”
“It’s very dark where there aren’t fires, and there’s a lot of smoke, I can’t see much at all—”
But even as she responded, the smoke was decreasing, and the hangar was becoming visible in the light of the smoldering fires. Her eyes swept over what she could see. The ceiling was nearly ten stories from the floor. She could see the cannons that had been firing on them—they were now sparking, smoking metal hulks set into the floor. The weapons were set around the ship in a circle…beyond the fires, she couldn’t see anything. She squinted.
Jerome said, “I can use the drones we use to manipulate the armor to give us some light.” A second later, bright spotlights lit the hangar.
Volka’s jaw fell open. “Oh…”
“What do you see?” Sixty asked. His thoughts came faster. “Are you being fired upon?”
Volka wanted to reassure him that they weren’t in imminent danger, but she swallowed. A hush fell around her.
The last cannon in the hangar was blasted by Rhinehart. “Nebulas,” she whispered. “There were fifty ships here?”
“Volka?”
Volka bit her lip. There were no ships. There were no bodies with neural interfaces to investigate. There was only a vast and empty hangar with frosted metal walls, lit by the drone’s spotlights.
Volka whispered, “It’s empty, Sixty. Completely empty.”
Volka knew that every system maintained spy drones—even Luddeccea. They didn’t cover every meter of the system, but that wouldn’t matter. Fifty ships on the move was something that even primitive Luddeccean tech would have picked up. Her brow furrowed. From what she knew of patrol patterns in Luddeccea, fifty ships emerging suddenly from a remote base—any remote base—would also have caught the attention of patrols. If there hadn’t been an emergency at System 5’s main planet, they would have seen and come here to investigate
Unless…unless the ships that emerged from the hangar weren’t here very long. Unless they didn’t travel very far. If, for instance, the ships that had left the hangar had immediately taken a shortcut through time and space to some destination unknown, they might never have been noticed until…now.
She exhaled. Fifty ships and over 5,000 infected people were gone to heaven knew where. They could be anywhere spreading the Dark throughout the Galaxy.
27
Dark Discord
Galacti
c Republic: Time Gate 5
“Fire,” Alaric commanded.
Two ticks highlighted in red on his holo exploded a heartbeat later. The ferry vessel they’d been tailing listed toward the Merkabah. She still had a tick on her starboard side, firing its thrusters randomly. The captain of the ferry was trying to compensate, but with no rhyme or reason on the tick’s part, the ferry’s course was erratic. Alaric couldn’t fire on the tick without blowing a hole through the ferry.
The holo, linked to Admiral Mitchel’s data, helpfully supplied the number of uninfected civilians aboard the ferry: 2,103. If Alaric wanted more information, he merely had to ask to see how many were crew and how many were passengers, their names and histories, their ages, their systems of origin. He’d already drilled down to see what sort of cargo she carried: nothing that could be effectively repurposed as a weapon—at least not where the tick was attached. If the tick were twenty meters to stern, it would be outside a cargo compartment with an external loading hatch. Another ship had used crates of exotic fruit to detach a tick—but since that memorable encounter, the ticks were more cautious. The Dark was learning.
...And now there was this ferry. It was just one tragedy in a heaven full of tragedies. Infected members of the Local Guard and pirate vessels were using civilian transports as shields, and of those shields, the largest was the Bernadette. On one side, these shields protected the Dark from the System 5 forces that had joined Mitchel. On the other side, the shields protected them from the weapons of Time Gate 5. Although, on that side, the gate right now was busy in battle with itself. Phaser fire was cutting through the vacuum of the gate’s inner ring. Areas controlled by the infected forces tried to fire on regions controlled by Time Gate 5, and vice versa. ‘Bots, seemingly on both sides, complicated the situation. Miraculously—or cursedly—the time bands looked undamaged. If the infected forces aboard the gate won, the infected would have free access to all who were aboard the gate and the galaxy. The gate’s clash with itself was so furious, the holo’s rendition of it was enough to light the bridge.
