by J. N. Chaney
“Because it’s not infectious. At least, not in any way that pertains to us. We’re just too weird and too alien for it to use us as a host or even a travel vector. We’re—” She paused and shrugged. “We’re too new. Our biochemistry is barely pushing four billion years old.”
Dash held up a hand. “Okay, let’s back up a bit. Machine by-products? What does that even mean?”
Elois nodded and called up an image on the viewscreen mounted above the bench. It depicted writhing, eddying streams of pulsing blue and silver, reminding Dash of the churning atmosphere of a gas giant. Angry red points were swept along in the swirling currents.
“We’ve applied a red dye to highlight the bits that appear to be derived from tech, from machine sources. In essence, these seem to be skins shed from nanobots, or something damned close to it. There are also proteins, and crystalline structures, and things that remind me of primitive semiconductor chip technology.”
Kai stepped closer and studied its languid, mesmerizing display. “Of course, this sample is billions—again, that’s with a b—of years old. Which makes us wonder—what if the Deepers aren’t evolving? What if they’re—”
“Dying out,” Dash finished. “The end of a race older than the stars.”
“It might explain why they’re so vicious,” Elois said.
Dash nodded. “Yeah, it would. They’re desperate, in the way anything that’s dying, and knows it, can be desperate. They’re trying to stave off the end.”
Dash was surprised to find a hint of sadness creeping into his words. The Deepers had been nothing but remorseless, vicious killers. Unlike the Golden, though, who had just wanted to eliminate sentient life because they despised and mistrusted it, the Deepers were desperately clinging to the last vestiges of their very existence.
Kai, his eyes still on the display, nodded. “At one time, they were a noble, progressive race, at least in their own minds. Now, they’re just the savage remnants.”
Dash puffed out a weary sigh. “Yeah. And somewhere, in wherever their collective consciousness is, they know it.”
Everyone, Dash remembered an old spacer saying, has that one place, that one bed, that’s home. For him, it had once been the cramped bunk in the crew hab aboard the Slipwing. Now, it was this one, in his quarters aboard the Forge. He sometimes shared it with Leira but still considered it his.
And now, after long weeks away, he was back. He was taking a whole day off, rewarding himself with an opportunity to unwind and let the Cygnus Realm chug along without him for a while.
Dash spent a moment just enjoying the smooth, cool sheets, his head softly cradled in the pillow. He let out a slow breath, taking one last look out the viewport. He could see the Greenbelt, and beyond it, Eastern. Assisted by the Forge, the Anchor had almost completed repairs to the damage inflicted on it by the Deeper attack. He just took in the serene view for a moment, then closed his eyes.
A few seconds later, the battle-stations alarm erupted, shredding his rare moment of relaxation and casting aside the pieces in a flail of arms, legs, and feet. Dash finally flung the covers aside and sat up.
“Custodian, talk to me!”
“A force of Deeper ships has just translated in-system. They have attacked and destroyed an outbound freighter that had just departed for Backwater and are currently engaged with the destroyer Tenacious and two accompanying corvettes that were on early-warning patrol.”
Dash began yanking on his clothes. “Dammit. How many of them are there?”
“Sixteen capital ships, and ten smaller vessels of frigate to destroyer size.”
Dash paused in the midst of pulling on his shirt. “That’s it? That’s not much of a force.”
“Nonetheless, the Deepers appear to be making a determined effort to strike at the Forge.”
Dash grabbed his boots. He’d stuff his feet into them in the elevator down to the Archetype’s docking bay.
Twenty-six ships, and ten of them were escort-class. It wasn’t a pushover, by any means, but if they got within range of the Forge, they wouldn’t last long.
Dash caught himself. That assumed the Deepers didn’t have some other trick up their sleeve. He only had to remember the nasty surprise of that beam weapon of theirs. Twenty-odd ships didn’t sound like much, but a relatively small number of viruses could infect and kill a human being. If the Deepers had some sort of secret payload and only needed to get close enough to the Forge to deliver it, then there could definitely be trouble. The Golden almost managed it with a single, tiny drone, which only the heroic efforts of Conover and Amy had stopped.
And then, of course, there was the Radiant Point, the near-end of the gate that led to the Large Magellanic Cloud. It was well within the Forge’s protective envelope, but still, it was another potential vulnerability. It would make sense that the Deepers would try to interdict their use of it.
He strode to the door, pausing only briefly to look back at his warm and inviting bed.
“Don’t go anywhere, sweetheart. I’ll be home soon.”
Dash turned and raced off, heading for the Archetype.
As soon as he was clear to navigate, Dash accelerated the Archetype hard. Now that their mechs had been upgraded, Leira and Conover were able to keep pace, flying to his left and right. Jexin and the Polaris were still at the far end of the Radiant Point gate, near the Large Magellanic Cloud, while Amy had gone to Backwater to run an errand to the Kingsport.
“Wei-Ping, how long do you need to get your force sorted out?” Dash asked.
“Fifteen minutes, and we’re getting underway with at least the Stalwart, a squadron of heavy cruisers, and a dozen smaller ships. We’ve got two more squadrons of heavy cruisers in the system, but one’s on the far side from the Deepers, inbound from Backwater, and the second had been stood-down for maintenance and refits.”
Dash studied the tactical display. The three mechs, along with the Stalwart and her task force, were certainly enough to take on the Deepers. It wasn’t exactly overwhelming force, though. The other two heavy cruiser squadrons would definitely help to tip the balance, but they were both at least a couple of hours away from being able to engage.”
“Okay, have those two squadrons of heavies take up a back-stop station, closer to the Forge, as soon as they can. I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the Deepers are going to try something unexpected here, so I want to be able to stop any of their ships that break through and make a run for the Forge.”
“Roger that. Wei-Ping out.”
Leira came on the comm. “What’s this sneaking suspicion of yours?”
“If I knew that, it’d be more than a sneaking suspicion.” He scowled at tactical for a moment. “I don’t know. There’s just something not right about this. This Deeper force is too big to ignore but too small to beat up both our forces here and the Forge.”
“Dash, not sure if this helps, but Kristin’s noticed some unusual signals coming from the Deeper ships,” Conover said.
“Unusual how?”
Kristin replied. “Unusual in the sense that they’re particulate emissions of a type we haven’t seen before. High energy neutrons, to be exact.”
“Okay. And what do you think that means?”
“I dunno. New weapon, maybe? A strong neutron beam could be pretty destructive at short range.”
“Anything we can’t handle?”
“Nah, not really. The emissions could also be some sort of new power source.”
Dash curled his lip. He hated this. Had it been a massive Deeper force, he could easily understand it. And if it had been just a handful of Deeper ships, even just two or three, he could get it being a reconnaissance force of some sort. This attack, though, sat smack in the zone between, Oh shit, we’re screwed, and Hey, not really a big deal.
“Sentinel, what do you think?” Dash asked.
“There are too many unknowns to say for certain. Clearly, this Deeper incursion has a purpose behind it. Their most logical target is the Radiant Point, f
ollowed by the Forge. At the moment, however, we can only work from what we know. And what we know is that the Deepers are obviously intent on pressing home their attack on one or both of those targets.”
“Maybe this was the biggest force they could muster,” Leira put in. “We assume they have a nearly inexhaustible supply of ships and ordnance, but maybe not. Maybe they’ve been as stretched as we have.”
“Good point,” Dash replied, but he still had his doubts. Were the Deepers really that desperate? Was it the Radiant Point, the gate to the LMC, that had forced their hand? What was out there that they’d be so anxious to prevent the Cygnus Realm from discovering that they’d attack only with whatever they could scrape together?
Of course, hadn’t they launched a similarly lopsided attack against the big Deeper battlewagon that had been skirting Realm space? And that had been Dash’s idea, trading sheer mass and firepower for a surgically precise strike at a critical target?
He grimaced. Sentinel was right. There were just too many unknowns. For now, all they could do was take the Deeper attack at face value. At the same time, they had to assume there was something more to this, some specific intent behind it they just hadn’t yet discerned.
Dash yanked his thoughts back from the morass of uncertainty and second-guessing that were starting to bog them down. He just pressed grimly on, watching the range to the Deeper ships tick down.
Here we go again.
“We will be at maximum effective range for missiles in one minute. Dark-lance range will follow four minutes later,” Sentinel announced.
Dash grunted his acknowledgment, but the Deepers maneuvering kept his attention glued to tactical. After driving off the Tenacious and her consorts, they’d split their forces, with about half suddenly accelerating upwards, relative to the system’s ecliptic, and the rest continuing their implacable advance, boring straight-in toward the Forge.
“Wei-Ping, can you take care of that Deeper force going high?” Dash asked.
“Sure can. Oh, and Benzel’s on his way. He’ll have the Herald, the Victory, and four heavy cruiser squadrons translating in about an hour from now.”
“Roger that,” Dash replied. He’d already seen Benzel’s approach on the operational display. Benzel himself had just come back through the Backwater Gate from the burgeoning Kingsport. He was redeploying his force to their centralized battle position, roughly equidistant from each of the Anchors, the Forge, and Backwater. It meant he was already effectively on his way to the Forge.
The icons highlighting the Deepers on the tactical display changed. They were now within missile range. As if to underscore it, the Deepers themselves loosed a barrage of missiles straight at the oncoming mechs.
Dash watched them approach.
“Dash, are we weapons-free?” Leira asked.
He just kept studying the tracks of the onrushing Deeper projectiles.
“Dash?”
“No, not yet. Let’s hang onto our missiles. We’ll engage with dark-lances and nova-cannons once we’re in range.”
Leira switched to a private channel. “Mind if I ask why?”
“A hunch.”
“Go on.”
“That’s it. A hunch. Until these Deepers commit to whatever they’re going to do, I want to keep our options open. And every missile we fire now is one we can’t fire later.”
“You’re the boss.”
Dash grinned. “Music to my ears.”
“Don’t get sassy, big guy,” she said with a laugh.
He switched back to the mechs’ general comm channel. “Like I said, weapons-tight on the missiles. Weapons-free on everything else—”
“Dash, the Deepers have begun to maneuver,” Sentinel cut in.
He frowned at the tactical display. After loosing their missiles, the Deeper force ahead had started a slow dive beneath the ecliptic, so slight as to be almost imperceptible.
“It’s like they’re trying to split our forces, as much as they can,” Dash said, more to himself than anyone else.
“That would follow,” Sentinel replied.
“But why? Unless . . .”
Dash turned his attention back out to the translation zone, the roughly spherical array of points surrounding the star system where translation could be safely started or ended. Was there another Deeper force out there somewhere? Was that what this was about? This force would pull away the defenders, potentially leaving the Forge and the Radiant Point without any protection but the station’s weapons?
Dash growled in frustration. He couldn’t help feeling that he was missing something here.
“Screw it. Let’s finish these bastards off as fast as we can, but keep a careful watch out for other surprises,” he said.
The first missiles entered dark-lance range. The three mechs opened up, blasting missile after missile to clouds of glowing dust and scrap. At the same time, Dash adjusted their course to keep them on an intercept with the Deeper ships themselves.
You could do two things with a distraction, he thought. Ignore it, or make it go away. He chose the latter because, at least for a time, anyway, the Forge could take care of itself.
Dash spat a curse as the eight Deeper ships, a battlecruiser and seven heavy cruisers, veered to open up the range even more. They were now on track to just sail right back out of the system without coming anywhere near the Forge.
Dash glared at the cluster of icons. “What the hell are you up to?”
He glanced at the other group of Deeper ships, the ones being engaged at long range by Wei-Ping. The Stalwart and the heavy cruisers accompanying her had already fired three full salvos of missiles and were readying a fourth. Wei-Ping wanted to deploy the Stalwart’s fighter wings, but there wasn’t much point until they got the range down by at least another twenty percent. Otherwise, the fighters would have a long, straight-line chase just to get into a position to attack. And fighters did not like long, straight-line runs at targets. It just wasn’t good for their health. They much preferred being launched as close as possible to their quarry—right on top of it, if possible.
“It looks like they’re trying to set up a wide pincer attack,” Conover said. “Like they want to take the Forge from above and below the ecliptic simultaneously.
Dash blew out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, but why? What can they accomplish doing that, that they couldn’t just by barreling straight in? And why split up their forces like this? It makes no sense.”
Dash took a moment to vent his frustration in the form of a series of dark-lance shots. He landed hits with half of them, finally knocking one of the Deeper cruisers out of formation. He’d held off just burning as hard as he could and overtaking the Deepers, wanting to see how their plan developed.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? They didn’t seem to have an obvious plan. It was as though they were just trying to keep the Realm forces here tied up . . .
Dash stopped, staring at the red icons of the Deepers but not really seeing them. He’d been sure he was missing something. Was sure that the Deepers were after the Radiant Point, or the Forge itself. And that’s why they were playing such an elusive, indirect game. They were setting up their actual, ultimate attack.
His eyes went wide. They were. But their target wasn’t the Forge or the Radiant Point. Their target wasn’t here at all.
“Shit. Sentinel, where’s Benzel?”
“His task force should be returning to real space sometime in the next ten minutes—”
“Custodian, get me someone at Backwater, anyone.”
“Your request is fortuitous. I have just received an urgent transmission from the Relentless. Backwater is under attack.”
“I knew i—dammit, as soon as Benzel gets here, tell him to turn right around and haul ass back to Backwater. Wei-Ping, I’m leaving you here to cover the Forge and the Radiant Point, in case the Deepers try to get tricky. Leira, Conover, we are heading to Backwater as fast as these new drives will take us, now.”
As he swung t
he Archetype toward the closest translation point and firewalled the Blur drive, Dash cursed again and again at his tunnel vision. He’d become target-locked, a rookie mistake. The Deepers had only attacked the Forge to draw and fix his attention here, drawing out their apparent attack for as long as they could. Their high-energy neutron emissions were probably just part of the deception, making them think that they had some cunning trick or unknown tech ready to unleash.
And Dash had played right into their hands.
20
The instant the Archetype plunged back into real space, the bad news started sluicing in.
The Relentless, only just put back into service and the epicenter of the task force protecting this end of the gate, had been pummeled into a near-lifeless wreck. What remained of her battered consorts had rallied around the Sabertooth, which hadn’t even been part of the task force and had just happened to come back through the gate, right into the midst of the firefight. The command cruiser’s arrival was probably all that had saved the planet and the gate, but even she had begun to stagger under the punishing weight of Deeper fire. Sentinel’s assessment was bleak.
“The Relentless is out of action, and her crew is abandoning ship. The Sabertooth has suffered moderate to severe damage, as has every other vessel in the task force. Deeper forces have landed on Backwater’s surface and are clearly determined to take and hold the planet.”
“They want this friggin’ gate.”
“So it would appear.”
Dash had already accelerated the Archetype into the Blur drive’s overspeed range, driving the mech along at almost eighty g’s. Leira and Conover were keeping up, but barely, and Tybalt was already fussing about the stability parameters of the Swift’s drive.
They could fall back if they had to, Dash thought. He had only one purpose, a grim one—to destroy these Deepers. Dying race or not, they would not triumph here today. Because, if they did, the embryonic Kingsport, an array of Cygnus Realm ships, and hundreds of their people would be trapped in the cold emptiness of the Big Black.