Hell's Reach (Galactic Liberation Series Book 6)

by B. V. Larson

  “Aye aye, sir.” She turned to the holotank. It showed the ship equidistant between the singularity and the proto-star. The ship’s course would skim the outer shell of the proto-star in a slingshot maneuver. With a normal star or planet in open space this would be routine, smooth sailing through vacuum so clear they could see out into the galaxy. Salishan longed for that visibility now, something every spacer took for granted—until it wasn’t there. Like a sailing ship enveloped in a storm, the very environment threatened their survival.

  “Hull temperature rising to critical,” the chief reported. “Even with max reinforcement, half an hour and we’ll start losing more surface systems.”

  “Shields?”

  “Capacitors are nearly drained. Any power we shift to shields comes off reinforcement, ma’am. Engineering is already doing all it can.”

  She turned back to the helmsman. “Helm, how long until we swing around the proto?”

  “Ten minutes should put us out of sight of the singularity, and I’ll bear away as fast as I can, using the slingshot effect.”

  “Carry on.”

  Salishan threw herself into her chair, her long legs out on the deck in a simulation of relaxation. No need to let the crew see how tense she was, but she felt her molars grinding as she silently worked her jaw, one eye on the holotank, and her hands gripped the chair arms until her tendons stood out like cables.

  “Bearing away,” the helmsman reported.

  “Gravitic sensors show the singularity still directly behind the proto-star,” Sensors said. “Maybe it can’t see us.”

  Salishan stood to stalk the deck. “Tech that can create a black hole can probably see us just as well as we can see it.”

  “Maybe not, ma’am. We’re a much smaller source—no gravity to speak of, on a planetary scale, and our EM is masked by the proto-star. It’s still—oh, shit.”

  “I really don’t like hearing ‘oh, shit’ again, Mister Wegmann. Report properly.”

  “Ma’am, the singularity just emerged from the proto-star. It passed right through it.”

  The holotank showed the story. The pinpoint representing the black hole had sailed directly through the bubbling mass of the proto-star and was following in the Trollheim’s wake. A wormhole began to form in advance of the thing.

  “It didn’t even faze it,” Salishan muttered, then raised her voice. “Zaxby, you there?”

  He replied over the intercom, his image appearing on a side-screen. “Here, Captain.”

  “I need answers. How can that thing see us? How can it shrug off a whole proto-star? How is it generated? Where’s the energy coming from for it to even come into being? And most of all, can we turn it off? Come on, brainiac, do your job!”

  “I realize I’m the ‘go-to guy’ in your vernacular when it comes to phenomena of this nature, but I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent. To take your questions in order, Roentgen suspects it sees us much as he sees it—via disturbances in neutrinos, muons and other quantum-level particles passing through the universe.”

  “Can we go dark? Stealthy? Become invisible?”

  “Not at this range. Next question: to a singularity, even the mass of a proto-star is diffuse and vaporous. Tiny black holes can pass through planets without slowing. As for how it’s generated and from what energy, I can only theorize that it’s coming from a parallel space. We know of sidespace and underspace, but mathematical theory suggests the existence of at least five other dimensions, for a total of eleven, several of which have not yet been empirically proven. Given that I can’t yet answer that question, your final inquiry is moot. We can destabilize the wormhole using our weapons and interrupt the control beam, which violently dissipates the singularity, but we can’t know the root source of the phenomenon. As you discussed with Straker, the rational course is to accede to the implied wishes of the butterfly collector and bow to the inevitable.”

  Salishan stiffened, hands like claws grasping the holotank rail as she took a deep breath. “Helm, cease acceleration. Engineering, recharge the capacitors and expedite repairs. We have ten minutes until that thing swallows us. We don’t know how long the trip will take, but I want us loaded for bear when we get there. Battle stations, full suits.”

  “Captain,” Zaxby said, “the trip will take almost no time, from our point of view.”

  “I thought you said—ah, lightspeed. You’re saying we’ll experience time dilation?”

  “Correct. An object moving at near lightspeed experiences very little time. A wormhole in effect accelerates the object within it instantaneously to lightspeed, though there is no true acceleration in the sense of overcome inertia. From the outside, travel through a wormhole linking two places, say one light-hour apart, will take one hour. From the inside, it will take less than one second. Therefore, as soon as the phenomenon arrives, we will emerge on the other side, from our point of view.”

  “Understood.” She drummed her fingers on the rail. “Salishan to Straker.”

  “Straker here.”

  “Sir, the wormhole will take us in a few minutes. It occurs to me we could salvo shipkillers into it a few seconds before, and the... the butterfly collector as Zaxby calls it might get a nasty surprise that will cover our emergence. We could also deploy the three skimmers and Redwolf into our wake, so they’d be able to operate independently. Worst case, they might be able to get away to report our fate.”

  “That’s what black box drones are for... but I take your point. The big question is, do we initiate hostilities, or hope for something non-belligerent on the other end?”

  “That’s a question for your pay grade, sir, not mine.”

  Straker’s voice was dry. “Since I’m here, right. No to the first, yes to the second. No salvo, but let’s get the skimmers and Redwolf into space and trailing us. Small craft too, at your discretion, with crews of your choosing. Zaxby can skipper Redwolf. We’ll be ready to fight, but I don’t want to start one. I’m getting the feeling we’re like a tiger cub about to be picked up by zookeepers. All biting their hands will do is piss them off.”

  “Understood.” She issued the orders.

  Closer and closer the wormhole approached, growing as it neared the now-drifting Trollheim, which faced its nemesis prow-on. With no more reason to evade, the crew concentrated on preparation for battle. Redwolf and the three skimmers now floated astern of the dreadnought, but Salishan had decided not to launch her small craft—shuttles, pinnaces, grabships and so on. Yet those were ready and waiting on the flight decks. Missiles were loaded in tubes, and every operating weapon was charged and ready.

  The nothingness grew to fill the forward viewscreen, a circle of black blotting out the glowing background of the nebula. Behind the wormhole, the baleful, powerful singularity controlled and projected it, like a man with a pitiless spotlight.

  What could mere humans do in the face of such power? Had it been stupid and foolish to go where all available information warned of deadly danger? With a confident General Straker leading them, she and the other Breakers believed they could handle anything—but here was something beyond their experience and ability. The feeling of helplessness and insignificance was torture far worse than any injury.

  Yet they had collapsed one wormhole. The butterfly collectors were not gods, any more than a zookeeper was invulnerable to a dangerous animal.

  She held these hopes in mind as the wormhole swallowed the ship.

  Chapter 26

  Hell’s Reach, aboard Cassiel.

  “What in the hell is that?” Loco asked, reaching across the cockpit to snatch the tiny tube from Chiara’s hand. He sniffed it, smelling that familiar herbal aroma, the aroma he’d thought was from her tea.

  “Erb. Pure Erbaccia extract.”

  Horror flooded his gut. “We have hundreds of liters of that crap with us! You’re an addict—and now you have all you want? My God, Chiara!”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Loco, think. I always had all I wanted. My people grow the s
tuff. Of course a lot of them use it—have used it for years, to cope with their misery and their captivity under the Korveni. Even unprocessed, you can chew the plant. The Korveni encouraged it, to control them, just like oppressors have always done. Bread and circuses, right? On Old Earth it happened all the time.”

  “But Chiara, you’re... ”

  “Different?” Her laugh was bitter. “You can take the girl out of her Contract, but you can’t take the Contractor way of thinking out of the girl.”

  Loco tried not to show how appalled he was. “Does Belinda use Erb too?”

  “Of course. Most ex-Contractors end up as addicts, of drugs far worse than Erb. Actually, she made the transition to Erb better than I did. Good thing I have plenty. She’d have died without it.”

  “You need to get off the stuff, Chi. You’re not a Contractor anymore—and neither is Bel.”

  Chiara shook her head slowly. “We always will be, in our own heads. The best we can do is live with it, manage it... make the best of it.”

  Loco’s mind whirled with the shock, but he pushed it aside with long practice as a proximity alarm alerted him to their approach to the wormhole. “Slow us down.”

  Chiara backed the throttles. “Slowing to relative rest.”

  Loco sighed. “Maybe Mara can help you get clean, when we get back.”

  “Maybe…”

  “You should have said something about this long ago.”

  “You... you’d have looked at me like you’re looking at me now. I couldn’t take that.”

  He breathed deeply. “I get it. But when we get home, we’re talking to Mara. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that, okay? I bet she can fix you right up, cure all your addictions. Maybe with her fancy rejuvenation tank.”

  “You have more faith than I do.”

  “Hope is more like it. But yeah, I have faith in Mara. She’s amazing. We have amazing people in the Breakers. We’re go-getters and problem solvers. We’re not perfect, but we don’t give up—on anyone. Least of all the people we love.”

  “Love ain’t some magic formula.” Chiara snorted and turned away, deflated. “I can’t handle this anymore. I can’t be in charge. I just can’t.”

  Loco took a long moment to consider. Her addiction pushed his decision over the edge. “Okay. I’ll take over command. But we don’t tell anyone that explicitly. They’ll figure it out soon enough, but it’s better that it seems like a natural change.”

  “Okay. Whatever.”

  He handed her back the tube. “And minimize this, okay? Just enough to keep you from withdrawal. That’s the deal, and it’s an order, since I’m in charge now.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” She saluted awkwardly, with her left hand, and she blinked, holding back tears.

  Loco stood. “Stand by. I need to talk to the crew about this wormhole.” He hoped she wouldn’t use more as soon as he left the room. Yet he couldn’t police her. That would never work.

  In the hold, he put Chiara out of his mind and gathered everyone else. “Listen up, people. We’re about to enter a wormhole. I have no idea what that means. Nobody I know has ever done it. I read about some experiments where they sent small probes through wormholes without damage. Our information says we have to go through it, and the captain and I both think this info is genuine and not a trap. The route info has been correct so far. We also don’t know if our rock buddies will follow us through, and we have no clue what’s on the other side, except that it’s some kind of Axis of Predators base or facility. In short... ” He stopped, finding it hard to say the next words.

  “In short, it’s a suicide mission, right sir?” Spacer Richards blurted out. “Sorry, I mean... ”

  “Belay that,” Chief Sylvester snarled at his crewman before turning to Loco. “Sir, we’re here to get our people back. If you say this is what it takes, we don’t care how dangerous it is. We don’t leave Breakers in captivity.”

  “Thank you. Both of you, gentlemen, for your honest opinions. If I thought it was a suicide mission I wouldn’t order it, but it is extremely dangerous. If we truly can’t handle what’s on the other side, we’ll run like scalded dogs and get a real fleet, then come back and smash these motherfuckers. But that will be my decision, my responsibility. Running would be humiliating, but remember, General Straker is also looking for them. Hell, he might already be there, might have rescued them.”

  That brought a guarded cheer.

  “Richards, you still chatting with the Lithoids?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Ask them if they’ve been through the wormhole before.”

  Richards tapped at his terminal. “No, sir. They have no idea.”

  “Tell them we’re going through. If they want to come along, we’d be happy to have them. If not, thanks and goodbye for now.”

  “They want to come along.”

  “Good. They’re our only ace in the hole. So, gents, hit the head one last time, eat a ration bar, take a drink, and suit up. We’re going through in ten minutes.”

  When Loco returned to the cockpit it was like stepping back into a different world—from the clear military environment of the Breakers to the muddy fog of a human relationship. Why couldn’t women be simple, like men? And why did it happen that he finally found his soul mate, but she was so... messed up?

  If there really was a God, he sure had a devilish sense of humor.

  “The Breakers will be ready,” Loco told her. “You good?”

  “I’m fine.” Chiara lifted her caff. “Drugged and ready.”

  “Then start moving in. I told them ten minutes to entry.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. “Aye aye, Captain sir.”

  “Please stop that,” he said.

  “Okay, okay. We’re on our way. The rocks seem to be coming along.”

  “Good.”

  In fact, the rocks englobed them completely in a loose protective sphere, like thirteen Lithomorphic sheepdogs guarding one injured lamb. Maybe that was part of their personality—they were pack creatures, both internally and externally. Each was composed of a pack of rocks, and they formed an uber-pack of Lithoids. Cassiel had been adopted as part of their pack.

  Loco wondered how they reproduced. Did they mate, mix their substance, and then create little rock groups, connected by new electromagnetic networks? Or did one divide into two, like bacteria, or Thorians?

  The first Lithoid ahead entered the black sphere and vanished, then three more, and then it was Cassiel’s turn. There was no sensation of acceleration or motion, no feeling of time passing, before they exited the other end.

  Chiara turned and accelerated the ship before the sensors had even populated the screens with information. The rocks moved with the ship, seemingly unperturbed by the passage through the wormhole. It was, in fact, more ordinary than a sidespace transit, like nothing had happened at all, as if they’d merely slipped through a dark curtain. Soon, the main screen showed a small moon or planetoid, about an hour’s travel away.

  Loco worked the sensors. “We’re getting ship signs... hundreds, maybe thousands. Mostly small craft, but some large ships too. No positive transponders, but they look like Arattak, Korven, Dusics... Crocs... Vulps... A few others I can’t identify. Axis of Predators, all right.”

  “Any ships near us?”

  “Not yet—oh shit, yes there are.” Suddenly, eight drive emissions sprang up. “Dammit, they were EMCON, probably guarding this end of the wormhole. Croc frigates, by the look of them.”

  Chiara turned the ship to put the enemies astern and shoved the throttles to their stops. “I’m heading back into the wormhole. We can’t handle eight Crocs—or all those others near the planetoid.”

  Loco could see the Crocs—crewed by a reptilian race resembling the crocodiles they were nicknamed for—were turning tightly and lining up on the Cassiel. “Gods, they’re fast in a sprint. They’ll catch us before we get away.” He activated the intercom. “Richards, tell our rock buddies we’re running, and to please cove
r our asses.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  In answer to the humans’ plea, Lithoids fell back to cover Cassiel. The Crocs launched missiles, which the rock-beings easily shot out of space with their electrical discharges. In response, the Crocs fired beams and blew several rocks apart from one Lithoid.

  That turned out to be a mistake. The Lithoids, enraged, rushed to protect their wounded comrade. Like a swarm of wasps they converged—many of them losing more rocks in the process, which didn’t seem to matter. They smashed themselves into the Croc frigates, ripping them apart in titanic discharges of kinetic and electrical energy. Within a minute, all the enemy ships were battered to hulks.

  “Gods and monsters,” Loco said, awed. “I’m glad they’re on our side.”

  The rocks sorted themselves out into groups, twelve of them. Try as he might, Loco couldn’t detect a thirteenth group. “I think they lost a guy,” he said hollowly.

  Without knocking, Richards burst into the cockpit, terminal in one hand. “Sir, ma’am—did you see that?”

  “We did.”

  “Those bastards killed one of the rocks, and they’re royally pissed, sir. What should I say?”

  “Tell them we sympathize with their loss,” Loco said, “and thank them for protecting us.”

  “They want to attack. Are we going to attack? I bet the Lithoids could clean these guys’ clocks!”

  “The score is eight to one, Richards.” Loco pointed at the main screen. “There are hundreds of enemy vessels out there near that base, and some much bigger than frigates. What do you think about that math?”

  The young man’s face fell. “Not good. I understand, sir. What are we going to do?”

  “For now, urge them to stay with us. Tell them we’re angry too, but it makes no sense to die needlessly.”

  “Get back here, Richards,” Sylvester roared from behind. “Quit bothering the bosses.”

  “Sorry, sir. Ma’am.” Richards withdrew, shutting the cockpit door.

  “It’s a good question, though,” Chiara said. “What are we going to do?”