"That man is a treasure," observed Wolff.
"Don't I know it," sighed LaForrest. "The other captains keep trying to steal him away, but his bread is buttered pretty well right here on Constellation. Even Buford tried to entice him, once. But he likes it here – thank goodness."
"So, what's the real reason for all the drop ships going out?" inquired von Barronov.
"There's a ship out there," said LaForrest.
"What?"
"There's a ship out there," the captain repeated, "and since I know where all of our ships are, and that's not one of them, I've got the drop ships doing recon patrols. As soon as we saw it, which was almost as soon as we popped out, and started launching ships, it went completely dark. We still haven't found it, but we know where it was."
"Gone to ground in an asteroid crater?" theorized Wolff.
"Possibly. It was difficult to make out, so it may have a black hull. And there are several large asteroids in the area where we saw it. Sanddoom has no moon, of course, just a bunch of Trojan asteroids following it in the L5 position, suggesting they might once have been a moon." LaForrest thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Mostly gravel and big rocks, a couple of pieces that might be as large as, mmm, Phobos, maybe."
The two majors looked at each other.
"I don't like where any of this is going," remarked von Barronov.
"Is your mission what I think it is?" asked LaForrest.
"Um. What were you told?" hedged Wolff.
"You're going a thousand light-years coreward to chase down a radio signal SETI claims to have heard."
Wolff relaxed. "Yeah," he said. "Thing is, it's not just claims. They heard it, and we've heard the playbacks. It's just too damn stupid for words, but they accidentally set a receiver down in the MW band and picked up what sounds like an AM news and talk station, at about 1900 on the AM dial."
"Bullshit. They usually listen up in the gigahertz range. S-band or some shit."
Wolff shook his head. "No bullshit, sir, that's where they heard it. And it's not a reflection from an Earth station, it's voices speaking a language nobody's ever heard and no human would ever be able to get their mouth, jaw, and tongue around. I heard one of the SETI scientists cracked three teeth, trying."
"Hmm. And you've got Miss Ariela along – to, what? Be a diplomat? Convert 'em to the Word of the Lion of God?" He smiled, thinly.
"Eventually, it would not surprise me if that were the plan," acknowledged Wolff. "But . . . um . . . well. How can I say this, sir? The Simulation told us to take her along. Said we might need her."
"Said we would need her," corrected von Barronov. "Wasn't any 'might' about it."
"And we have needed her," agreed Wolff. "But I don't think that's what the Simulation meant. Though, who the fuck knows."
"My ghost ship, though," said LaForrest. "Could it be one of 'theirs'?"
"If it's not," said Wolff, "I just became as unhappy as Chris about the direction this is headed."
"Okay, talk to me."
"Well, in theory, it could be Chinese."
LaForrest closed his eyes, and sighed. "Saint Michael, give me strength. You did not just say it could be Chinese."
"Sorry, sir, but that's exactly what I said."
Wolff's comm buzzed, just then.
"Damn," said LaForrest, "I should have turned on the jammer. Go ahead."
Wolff pulled out his comm and read the text. "It's from Ari," he said. "Prisha was just lucid long enough to tell us they were expecting a Chinese ship, not an American one. Her boyfriend slash owner had told her she needed to go now because there was a shipment going out. I asked, a shipment of what? She didn't know and lost consciousness again a moment later. Thought you should know. Ari."
"Damn it!" shouted LaForrest, frustrated, and banging the table with a fist.
"It could still be an alien," cautioned von Barronov.
"It could," agreed LaForrest, "but now I have to be on the lookout for either." He punched the intercom. "Communications."
"Communications, aye."
"Send to Sergeant Martinez on Drop One, Captain's compliments and he is to take his ship and Drop Two and visit the terminal station. I want an inspection made of the interior, and a report of anything that seems to be out of order, and/or anything unusual they find there, ASAP. He is to use his own judgement regarding weapons loadout but it is my recommendation that the men going on the station be armed, and that both drop ships man and run out their cannon, and remain vigilant while the inspection team is inside. The ROE is to shoot them first if they even act like they're going to shoot at you; I'll take the heat. Message ends."
"Aye aye, sir." The communications tech read the message back, and LaForrest acknowledged. "We'll send that out now, sir. Scramble One?"
"Yes, good. Until further notice, all intership messages are to use scramble code. Mix it up when you can."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"LaForrest out." He turned to the two majors. "Tell me the rest of it."
"It's beginning to fall together, hazily," said Wolff. "The Chinese have gotten hold of the drive, somehow; you know how they love to steal IP, even now that the commies are gone and the country's in four pieces. If I were going to guess, I'd guess they got it from our friends at CalTech who helped us with it in the first place. Their security was tight, but not tight enough, in our opinion," and he nodded at von Barronov, who nodded back. "We expressed that opinion several times but did not get much traction. So as soon as our guys finished the mathematics for us, we went physically to their labs with an order from the President, and wiped all of the data related to the project from their drives, using NSA-level cleaning tools." He shrugged. "They bitched, but they were under an NDA and a Top Secret code-word compartment, so they didn't have a leg to stand on. I figure either the data was stolen before then, or there were holdout backup drives we didn't know about."
"Okay, stipulated, the Chinese probably have the drive. And?"
"Prisha's husband, whom I presume has been dead for some time, was Chinese."
"How would he have gotten dead?"
Wolff shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe he got in too deep, decided he wanted out, and the RIFs killed him, and forced his wife and daughter into slavery. Prisha, while quite lovely, has a scar on her face that could have come from someone slashing her for being, hmm, uncooperative. Naira is nearly fourteen, and according to Prisha, her current owner was about to be forced to sell her on. Well, that's a common age for unprotected girls in that culture to be forced into sex slavery; been there, seen that, years ago in Mog; lost someone I thought was a friend over it. Some go younger still. I'm sure a half-breed Chinese-Indian virgin would probably have brought a pretty penny at auction, so I'm having relatively good thoughts about Prisha's owner, even if he is one of the engineers on whatever this project is."
"And the project, what was it?"
"More guesswork. A portal, to transport items to the station to be picked up by the Chinese, who were providing technical support and other valuable considerations, and prevent them having to actually go to the surface, where they'd undoubtedly be seen eventually. They must have been to the surface somehow, though, to transfer machinery, parts, and personnel to the RIFs, but I don't know how."
"Unless the portal isn't a death trap if you have a matching portal on the other end," theorized von Barronov. "What if they have a matching portal somewhere in South China?"
"And now the shit got even deeper," observed LaForrest. "The planet of no return now has a return gate."
"If we're right," cautioned Wolff. "We just threw a whole lot of BS into the air to get to that conclusion."
"Poppycock," snorted LaForrest. "I remember how you were bang on the money about the invaders in the other timeline. And you're the only human who can read timeline code like the Simulation's Programmers and Operators. Are you sure you aren't just surfing the code in realtime, and you're seeing what's really been happening?"
Wolff and von Barronov excha
nged glances. "Actually, Chris came up with most of the storyline that turned out to be the truth, or close to it," said Wolff, slowly. "But that timeline was mostly my fault, and came mostly out of my thoughts. And I can't say I'm not hooked into the code in some crazy, metaphysical way, because I've never actually thought about it that way."
"It's a working hypothesis, then," said LaForrest.
Wolff started to open his mouth to reply, but the intercom beeped and saved him. "What?" roared LaForrest.
"Captain, XO. The unknown ship has reappeared and is heading for the station. Arrival imminent."
"XO, set Alert Condition Five, recall all drop shops except Drop One and Drop Two, all hands to battle stations. I'll be on the bridge immediately. LaForrest, out."
He looked at the two majors. "Let's go. The shit's about to hit the fan, we might as well get ourselves a ringside seat."
"I sure hope someone thought to bring plenty of plastic sheeting," was Wolff's only reply.
Interlude:
The End of the Dream
Personal Diary of Ariela Rivers Wolff, Volume 60
29 May 2047
Aboard the USSF Constellation in the HIP 98813 system
When I heard the horn klaxon go off and the captain speaking over the intercom the 1MC to announce Alert Condition Five, my mind went back to those wild days, thirty of my personal years ago, when we collected up all the uptime invaders, traveled through time to their home in the 46th Century, shot down the missile shot at us by the Mars base, nearly wrecked ourselves flying at the very bottom of Earth's exosphere, and then later took on the six frigates from Sanddoom . . . all because the Simulation was desperate to create some chaos so my static timeline wouldn't collapse and send a shockwave all the way back through the system, possibly crippling the entire operation begun by the Originators.
That was a dream that ended quite abruptly for me, when I fell off the end of the timeline and nearly lost my last grip on reality. And everything leading up to that event was a dream, as I remember it; very much "going through the motions", or as Dad put it, "following the script." He would know, since most of it came out of his head in the first place, or was extrapolated when the Simulation ran out of events from his personal history in the other timeline and had to create a future from scratch for us. Because we had no free will, no, hmm, ability to create new things ourselves that weren't already firmly in the script. In effect, seven billion human beings in my birth timeline were nothing more than non-player characters in a gigantic game of The Sims – It's For Real This Time Edition. And, in fairness, there was one player – my mother, who had shifted from Dad's timeline to the new timeline and was the only person in the world who had any free will – and couldn't exercise it because of the constraints of the timeline settings. The Simulation understood her frustration – insofar as the semi-sentient quantum quaternary logic "understood" such a thing – and allowed her, as part of the script, to write a short tract about her quandary, called The Seeming Absence of Free Will. Which became a best-seller, right down the timeline, even past the 41st Century revolt against the elites, a copy of which I "found" aboard the uptime ship we reconned before the action really began. And I scare-quote "found" because I was firmly enmeshed in the script myself, and when asked, "why that book?", all I could answer was, "it was calling to me."
But I write this after a very long day, most of which was spent alongside Dr. Patterson and her boss Dr. del Toro (who it turns out was Dad's surgeon many years ago, after Dad got busted up in combat), trying to help stabilize Prisha and Naira. As I was tossing out orders left and right, and performing procedures up and down, it occurred to me this was the first time I'd been in an actual trauma situation since my residency, and it rammed home the idea that I was no longer dreaming . . . that I was really, and truly, a trained professional in my field and not simply an automaton going through the motions as dictated by a script.
I still have doubts, though. The whole Lion of God business makes it even worse. I know it's impostor syndrome. I know Dad says I am really the person I seem to be, regardless of everything up to thirty years ago being nothing but a set of pre-programmed responses to the "stimuli" of the script. But I don't know what to do about my doubts, other than soldier on (hey, and that's for real, now) and accept my ability to do in the real world what I "learned" in the dream . . .
I would talk to Dr. Patterson about all of this, but she's Kat Wolff's friend, and it would be weird for me if it got back to Kat . . . Perhaps I will talk to Dr. del Toro. We'll see.
Chapter 7
To Be Detected Is To Be Targeted Is To Be Made To Squeal Like A Little Girl
The bridge was busy, but subdued. The XO handed over the conn to LaForrest quickly, then stepped away to his own duty station. There was a bit of a flurry when the mess section delivered coffee and energy bars, but that quieted down quickly once cups started draining and bars began to be munched.
"Is that docking collar of yours going to hold if we go into maneuvers?" LaForrest asked, quietly. "Maybe I should send out a team to put in some hold-downs."
"The grapples will hold, no problem," Wolff assured him. "But the collar is designed to have some give, so it might make sense for someone to go down there and make sure all the hatches are closed. We got out of the berth in such a hurry, I think everything was left open."
"We're all still too new at this," grumbled LaForrest, "no matter how many hours we've been out and how many missions we've run." He picked up his comm and hit a speed dial entry. "Pete? Nate here. Can you run a couple of your Marines out to Berth One and close the hatches on the Bandersnatch, and on the berth itself? Yeah, they were in a bit of a hurry when they got here. Wolff, here, says the RV's grapples will hold, but the inflatable collar might leak." He listened for a moment. "Great. Thanks, Pete. LaForrest out." He clicked the comm off and set it down. "Taken care of."
"That's Brigadier General Peter Harris, right?" asked Wolff. "I heard he got a promotion but wouldn't leave the Constellation."
"Yep. More like he wouldn't leave the First of the First. Can't say I blame him. You know they all wear red berets now, and call themselves The Lions Rampant? Or for short, Ari's Own." He laughed, and looked at them. "And you're underdressed, both of you. You're supposed to be wearing the beret, too."
Wolff snorted. "Last time I wore a red beret, I was in the Boy Scouts. Chris, here, was probably wandering around the 5th arrondissement in his, sipping espresso and poking his head into the bookshops."
"More likely the 4th," disagreed von Barronov. "I spent – hell, still spend – a lot of time at Notre-Dame and on the Île de la Cité in general. Alicia's the one who hangs at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle."
"Sir," warned the XO, "station coming up."
"Status, XO?"
"The unknown ship is standing off at about a thousand meters. We're getting good scans of her, by the way. Not alien. Humans aboard, about forty of them. And not doing anything, just sitting there."
"And Drops One and Two?"
"Maintaining aggressive stance with guns run out. Sergeant Martinez just checked in, said they have found some, quote, interesting, unquote, things aboard the station and will be bringing them out when they leave."
"By 'interesting,' I assume they mean 'things that shouldn't normally be there.'" LaForrest turned to the two majors. "Well? What do you think? Is that ship going to contest us walking off with its cargo?"
"What's scan say about its armament?" asked von Barronov.
"XO?"
"Scan did not detect any capital armament," reported the XO. "There are probably hand weapons aboard, but nothing that appears capable of fighting a ship-to-ship action. Best guess is that we surprised the hell out of them, sir, just by being here when they were about to dock. Of course, they may have been spooked earlier by seeing the Bandersnatch latched on, too."
"And no markings at all?" mused Wolff. "Just a black hull."
"We see no markings," confirmed the XO.
"Theoretically, Captain, that's a pirate ship, and fair game for capture and prize money," Wolff pointed out.
"And? What d'you want me to do, lay close aboard and give her a broadside, so you can take Harris's Marines on a boarding action?"
"Oh, hell no, sir. Why board her when we can just put a bunch of holes in her and make her surrender?"
LaForrest laughed. "Major Wolff, that's just cruel. I applaud you. You're an exemplary Marine, wanting first of all to go break things and kill people before we even talk to them."
Wolff looked modest. "It's what we do, sir."
LaForrest was still laughing, but he said, "We really can't do that, you know. Even if she is a pirate."
"Yes, sir. But we can put one hole in her and leave her otherwise intact, but dead in space."
"Where?"
"The singularity drive is likely in the lower bow, just like ours. It's really the only safe place to put it. And it should stand out like a searchlight on a neutrino or tachyon scan."
"Hmm. XO?"
"On your screen, sir." An image popped up on LaForrest's holoscreen: An outline of the unknown ship, with a bright spot forward and below the centerline.
"Weapons, get me Turret One."
"Go for Turret One. Spacer Green here."
"Green, this is the captain. If I send you coordinates of a particular spot on that ship, can you put a shot right through them and not tear the whole ship wide open?"
"Aye, aye, Captain. We can do it. Tolerance at this distance is about five centimeters."
"XO is going to send you coordinates. As soon as he does, I want you to point your plasma cannon thataway, and leak just enough plasma at 'em to make the hull plates in that spot hot without burn-through. Maybe a ten-second burn. Savvy?"
"Aye, aye, sir! We'll tickle her good. Green out."
The Lion and the Lizard Page 9