"What is your name?" she said, allowing an edge of command to enter her voice.
The man rolled his eyes. "Iranat Jessin," he answered.
Asarik crossed her arms again, letting herself appear annoyed. "Well, Mr. Jessin, I would like to know why you followed us through the Halith Gate. We are on an exploration mission and you and your crew are not safe in this system. Your operations to this point represent several acts of aggression against Serens' Reach.
Jessin blew out his cheeks. "Acts of aggression?" he said, barking a laugh. "Last I heard, this is unclaimed space. Nobody gave Serens System the sole permission to poke your noses in the gate. You didn't even know if it was going to work or not."
On the screen beside Jessin's narrow head, Sythil typed: Not Garalan Fleet. Last registry is a smuggling charge on Laiklin. Says he fled security three weeks ago.
Asarik smiled slightly. It was amusing to watch the man trying to insult her as the truth scrolled beside his head.
Laiklin Sartor was an orbital in the Garalan Belt, known for its loose security and extensive gray market. Jessin must have killed several people or angered the wrong administrator to even make security look his way.
Or stolen a guard-class cruiser, she considered.
Asarik didn't know which was worse: a criminal or the Garalan Fleet. At least the Fleet followed their laws. If Jessin had used Halith as an escape, then he wouldn't care what Serens' Reach did in the system.
But Halith was several gate jumps from Garalan System. It made no sense for him to run for the dormant gate and wait until they arrived to follow them through. A guard-class cruiser was not a long range vessel.
"What are you doing with a Garalan cruiser, Mr. Jessin?" Asarik said. "You're a long way from Laiklin Sartor."
"What did you just launch?" he demanded, ignoring her question. "You launched something on a trajectory for the fourth world."
As he sounded more upset, Asarik kept her voice calm. "We are an InquiryShip, Mr. Jessin. As our protocol commands, we launched a drone to assess the ProgressWorld."
Jessin's demeanor changed with the news. He looked to the side and bit his lip. Shaking his head, he turned his gaze back to Asarik and let out a deep breath. "So you already did it. You already contacted the ProgressWorld."
"We haven't contacted anyone, Mr. Jessin. We sent a verification drone."
"You don't know what you've done."
Asarik watched him closely. His behavior was beginning to seem erratic. "Please explain what we've done, then," she said.
Jessin pushed himself away from his console and walked out of view, then walked past the camera the other direction. He was dressed in a gray work overall with a pistol hanging in a thigh holster on his right leg.
"Tell him we're going to drag him behind his own engines, ShipLord," someone said behind her.
Before Asarik could turn to quiet the assembled crew members, Thasan hushed them. "We don't have any weapons, dummy," the warrant officer hissed. "Did you forget you're stationed on an InquiryShip? The missile bays are full of long range sensors."
Jessin appeared back at his console. He sat down heavily. "Here we go, Asarik Karak," he said. "I have a message for you."
He slid his hands over his console, tapping in commands. The screen flickered and another man appeared in the view, standing in what looked like an office. Asarik didn't recognize him. He sat at a long desk with rows of printed books behind his head. He was dressed in Garalan robes of shiny gold and brown. The man's face looked as hard and cracked as a burnt piece of wood. His eyes were filmy but staring directly into the screen.
Asarik waited for him to acknowledge her for a second before realizing she was watching a recording.
"My name is Tyu Sala," the old man said in a rough, baritone voice. His accent drew out the vowels in long notes. He leaned forward to clear his throat, then broke into a coughing fit, fist to his lips. When the coughing finally passed, he said, "I am the Garalan representative to the Council of the Known Worlds." He smiled abruptly, his face crinkling while his eyes didn't change. "ShipLord Karak, I serve with your father."
Sala paused and looked into the screen as if he were choosing what to say next, or maybe giving Asarik time to think over what he had said. It only heightened the surreal nature of the message. Asarik felt like she was looking through a window into another world. She had people bleeding in the medical bay from the crossing, and now she was listening to this man speak.
"I regret," Sala said, "that you and your crew have become pawns between Garalan and Serens. You don't know me but I know you're father well. It is safe to say we dislike each other a great deal, and have for a long time." The false smile returned and faded. "I also knew your mother, Ahsal, may she rest. I regret her death. I ask you not to follow her path."
Asarik crossed her arms. Anxiety tickled the back of her neck.
"Give up the ProgressWorld Elegaia," Sala said. His voice drew out the name like the end of a hymn. "Give up this portion of your mission, and you and your crew will be allowed to pass back through the gate and continue to the remaining gates. If you do this, Serens System will benefit in other ways that I cannot share with you. I will tell you that if you were able to consult with your father and your command, they would agree. You have no reason to trust me but this is the truth."
Sala coughed again. He glanced at something beyond the view screen as if his time had grown short. "The ProgressWorld Elegaia does not belong to the Known Worlds," he said. An intensity entered his eyes and face. "The Halith Gate must remain closed to humanity. Your mission was doomed to fail before you even received it, Asarik Karak. I cannot allow Serens to lay claim to Halith and Elegaia."
Some of the light went out of Tyu Sala's face. He looked down at the desk, and then back up at the screen. His hands shook. "I beg you this," he said. "The Great Dark Age is not yet over. It will return if we do not protect against it. Those among you who believe know this: We must not allow the Waiting Queen access to the Known Worlds."
The recording skipped, shearing his face, and ended.
The crew was quiet behind Asarik. Something religious hung in the air of the cafeteria, as if a wild man had just shouted prophecy at them, cursing them, denying the technology that powered their lives. They were scientists, technicians and soldiers. They made their way by the power in their hands and their focused minds, not by dreams or fear. Still, no one could deny the shiver that mention of the Dark Age sent through them, a warning of wolves in the ancient forest. She heard someone laugh uncomfortably but it wasn't repeated.
Jessin's face reappeared in the screen. "You look sad," he said, grinning.
"How much were you paid to deliver this message, Jessin?" Asarik demanded.
He held up a tanned finger. "There's more," he said. "Don't start threatening me just yet."
Asarik bit her lower lip, watching the man. Everything was simple when she remembered the mission. She could explain herself to the crewmembers watching if she remembered the mission. She didn't have to consider Garalan superstition.
"We are an unarmed InquiryShip," Asarik said. "I am not here to make threats to you."
He shrugged. "I already sent a message notifying the council that you're dead. I arrived in the system to find your ship ground to dust. Garalan will claim the ProgressWorld and close the gate." Jessin looked at one of his thumbs. "I'm no expert on tactics, but I don't need to be. This ship has a CombatMind I'm going to leave in control of the weapons systems, and I've been ordered to leave it sitting here. You're not getting back through this gate, and any ship that comes through from the other side without broadcasting a Garalan signature is going to eat a missile barrage." Jessin grinned. "It's been lovely chatting with you, ShipLord Karak."
Asarik went stiff with rage. She opened and closed her fists. She wanted to land a high kick on Jessin's leering face but stopped herself before rage tricked her into smashing the viewscreen.
The screen went black. Behind her, the crew was silen
t until someone muttered, "Damn."
Asarik turned to face the crew. The cafeteria was nearly full. She spotted Lieutenant Athan standing at the back near the door with a cup in his hand.
She squared her shoulders. "Well," she said. "You all heard the message. Does anybody know what Councilmember Sala was talking about?"
Some people shrugged and others shook their heads. Eventually the old warrant officer Asarik had seen when she first came in, Thasan, cleared his throat. The crewmembers closest to him stepped away so Asarik had a clear view of him. He looked like he wanted to suck his head into his shoulders.
"He's talking about the Caretakers, ShipLord," the warrant officer said. "You may have heard that name. They also call themselves Believers. They think humanity is doomed to fall back into the dark ages." He shrugged. "My speciality is archeology and there are a few of them in the field. They're very fringe, ShipLord. Honestly, I'm amazed to hear a member of the Council of the Known Worlds speak of them."
"You're sure," Asarik said.
"It's the only thing that fits."
"Then who is the Waiting Queen he was talking about?" Athan called from the back.
"They have a deity system aligned around the ancient concepts of Teiat and Sesat, keepers and protectors of knowledge." He rotated his empty hands. "It's a shared natural energy dichotomy. Based in myth. Who knows where they--"
Asarik held up a hand to stop him. She looked from face to face in the watching group. "So our planning assumption," she asserted so everyone could hear, "is that religious zealots have infiltrated the Garalan government, taken control of a military cruiser, and have placed a blockade on the Halith gate in order to disrupt our mission and further their own goals."
Thasan's mouth still hung open from when she had stopped him mid-sentence. He closed his mouth and nodded. "That sounds correct to me, ShipLord."
"Constraints on our planning are a lack of offensive capability and no communications with our higher command," Asarik said. "Unless we break their blockade."
Saying those words settled a sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach. She immediately thought of her mother.
Lieutenant Athan raised his mug in one hand and pulled the hair out of his eyes with the other. "I have some ideas about that, ShipLord," he said.
"Good," Asarik said. She looked pointedly around the room. "You all know what the mission is. We will verify the ProgressWorld and send news back through the Halith Gate using our remaining communications drone. We can assume the Garalan ship has a standard missile complement and a rail gun."
Many of the crew had gone to the position of attention as she looked at them. Now Asarik took a step back and went to attention. "Victory is destiny!" she called out, invoking the Serensian battle cry.
The crew snapped to attention and answered her: "Victory is destiny!"
As their combined voices faded from the air, Asarik heard her communications link beeping.
"ShipLord," Lieutenant Sythil said. "We have verification from the drone."
Cheers broke out. Asarik couldn't help smiling as she shouted over the cries, "Move out! Get to work!"
Chapter 5
Out of missiles, facing an enemy with a full weapons complement, Ahsal and her staff chose a feinting maneuver. They would overload the the engines on Hunter's Fury and accelerate into the Garalan cruiser guarding their access to Caisan Gate, overpowering its rail gun reload period, the Garalan's only close-range weapon.
Prior to impact, they would launch the three escape craft on a vector through the gate, creating an opening for reinforcements to secure Caisan and enter Rini System.
Asarik had been sixteen when her mother died.
She used to rail against her for not being one of the fifteen crew members aboard the escape craft who survived. She cried herself to sleep for weeks, inconsolable, as her father sat at the edge of her bed, holding her at first, then yelling at her about "Choosing iron or mud."
Karaks were iron. She must choose to be iron, not weak like mud. Tears were mud. Regret was mud. Mud disintegrates.
Iron washes clean. Her mother had been iron.
Asarik had studied the recordings of Hunter's Fury as a bright ball of light and its impact with the second point in the long distance, both flaring brighter together for an instant before their pinpoint went out like a star disappearing.
Her class had run simulations in the academy, debating other courses of action, other options the staff might have taken. Hunter's Fury might have simply pulled back and waited. But that didn't acknowledge their mission. They had been sent to break the blockade, and they did.
* * *
The atmosphere of ProgressWorld Elegaia was currently a thick blanket of silver-tinted clouds. Everyone on the command deck watched through the drone's eyes as it sank into the cloud layer, water droplets and spangles of light filling its view. The light shifted from gray to orange.
When the drone dropped out of the clouds, blue-gray sky and the green curve of an ocean filled its view, followed by a sliver of land on the horizon that grew into a rocky shore. Time seemed to speed up as the land shifted beneath the drone's path. Rocky beach skipped into kilometers of misty estuary, followed by plains of waving grass that became rolling hills. Asarik glanced at Sythil's control panel and when she looked back up, the drone shot through a snow-crusted mountain pass, crags on either side.
It was so different than Serens. Its colors were more vivid. Everything looked wet. Where were the dry grasses, the deserts of red stone? Where was the pink sun in the powder-blue sky? She stared at the views, uncertain if they were truly beautiful or simply alien.
For the next thirty minutes, the drone sped over the surface of the ProgressWorld, sending back long minutes of gray-green ocean, followed by landmass. The survey data populated the consoles in the command deck and then went out to stations throughout the ship where specialists could arrange and classify.
Asarik ducked under one of the hanging screens as she crossed the room. They had more than enough information now to send back to command. It was time to decide their plan on getting back through the gate.
"Athan, Sythil," she said, calling her seconds in command. "Plans room."
The two lieutenants tapped final commands into their consoles and then stood to follow her to the small conference room off the command deck. Sythil waved the door closed as Asarik pulled back the chair at the head of the small table and slumped into its seat. She felt like she'd been standing for days.
Athan and Sythil stood at the end of the table. Lieutenant Athan had already activated a display panel in the wall behind them.
"ShipLord," he said. "After gathering maintenance data on Prowling Thunder for the last eight hours, we are fairly certain that Jesin is the only person aboard the ship. The environmental signatures are much too low, and the ship is barely giving off the heat signature it should be. I've only seen a single waste discharge since he entered the system."
"All right," Asarik said. "What can we do with that?"
"If he's going to put the ship under control of its CombatMind, that opens two possibilities. I could try to contact the CombatMind directly and reason with it. That is the more difficult scenario since we haven't cracked the Garalan command encryption yet. Option two, we could try contacting Jessin again and tell him we want to meet in person."
Asarik was watching Sythil, who had her head down, staring at the table, harboring a secret smile.
"Why are you smiling, Sythil?"
The curly haired lieutenant snapped her head up, growing immediately serious. "I'm was thinking of how we could convince Jessin to let us approach, ShipLord. He called you a tall drink of whiskey."
"I don't know if that's good or bad. Why do we want to get close to Prowling Thunder?"
Athan tapped the table. "I can re-program the main communications array to direct a tight-beam at Prowling Thunder's communications array. This should affect its weapons command and control. We blind him, then burn for the gate
."
"We can't do that from here?" Asarik said.
Athan shook his head. "Too much latency. We also need to get close enough to the gate to conceivably reach it before any missiles reached us."
Asarik bit her lip, staring into the space between them as she considered their options. "What about those other signals Sythil said you observed coming off the gate? What did that turn out to be?"
Athan shrugged. "I don't know, ShipLord. It's a repeating waveform. If it were emanating from anything other than the GalaxyGate, I'd say it was a monitoring broadcast, the kind of thing that checks in to let you know it's operating properly. Except that's never been observed coming off a gate, as far as I know. I only took one class in gate physics at the academy, though."
"I think it's going to the ProgressWorld," Sythil said.
Athan pulled a hand through his hair and shook his head. "It's going to the whole system. There's nothing to say it's being sent directly to Elegaia. There's certainly no response signal."
"Can it help us in any way?" Asarik said, growing tired of the debate. "I need information that's going to help me make a decision. This is a new system, of course there are going to be new phenomena." She pointed at the two of them. "Your job is to sort through the noise. Telling me I need convince a criminal to let us approach his highly armed cruiser so we can attack him is not a valid plan." Asarik was getting angrier as she spoke, her feeling of helplessness overtaking her. "What do we say about hope?"
Neither of them answered.
"Well?" Asarik demanded.
"Hope is not a method," Athan said in a low voice.
"Jessin is narcissist, ShipLord," Sythil said abruptly, urgency growing in her voice. "I ran his emotion-response profile. If you can play to his ego, he will let us approach. You saw his face. He enjoyed taunting you. What threat are we to him? That's not hope, it's human nature."
Asarik released a long breath. "All right," she said finally. "But I'll make the call from here. I don't want the rest of the crew seeing this." She pointed at Athan. "Get teams working on chaff we can dump from the airlocks if they do fire on us. I also want you to run simulations on your plan with the communications array. We need to know any potential problems. I don't want to burn out our own communications in the process of attacking Prowling Thunder."
The Expanding Universe Page 6