The Lion in Paradise

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  "I'm glad you did," admitted Yehudit. "I kept wondering when she was going to grow up."

  "She is grown up, and has been for a long time," said Delaney, drily. "Look at how she jumped all over the technical aspects. Calculating an orbit and appropriate thrust to get the moon back where it needed to be, with nothing more than a ballistic calculator and some knowledge about sniping she picked up years ago from Grumpaw? Damn, 'Hudit, I'm fucking impressed. I'd recommend her for FTSA, if she were a Space Force Marine."

  Ariela's comm buzzed. She looked at the screen, and popped open the message. "Your Uncle Jack says everything looks good on Phobos; the base popped a few leaks but they've been sealed, and all the docked ships are in good shape. His ship is fine, but it was at Deimos. The Martian news channels are apparently full of speculation as to what happened, and how in the world Phobos magically fit itself back together and regained orbit, but so far Elon and Mei have been tight-lipped, saying 'no comment'. I gather they're waiting to hear from either General Buford or your Grumpaw." She set the comm back down. "I'd imagine that will come from Buford, but Dad will probably have to write it."

  Her comm buzzed again.

  "Hmm. This one is from General Buford, what a shock. 'What in hell is going on out at Mars?' I guess I'd better call him." She rose, and taking the comm with her, exited the office.

  "Where's she going?" wondered Yehudit, idly.

  "To the radio room," answered Delaney. "It's as close to a SCIF as we have in the building. She could walk over to the real SCIF in the SFMID Annex, but it's probably not worth the time and trouble."

  ◆

  I should have walked over to the SCIF and collected my thoughts first. Ariela sighed.

  "So what the hell are we going to tell the newsies?" grumbled Buford.

  She was used to the man being a curmudgeon, just not with her.

  "Sir," she said, considering her words carefully, "I think we need to figure out a way to attribute this to some new crazy invention of my father's and uncle's. I don't think we're ready to go public with the Corps. Do you?"

  In the holotab screen, he scowled at her. "No. But what harebrained scheme of your dad's are we going to bullshit about now?"

  "Maybe he's developed a tractor beam?"

  "And where was he while he was using it? Not at Mars." Buford sighed heavily. "In fact, he left rather abruptly from the vicinity of SFS Clarke about the time you were still lifting Phobos back into orbit, claiming a test of something completely different, and dug such a huge warp in the process, I was half afraid we were going to have to diddle all the planets' orbits back into shape."

  "We saw that. Delaney said the same thing. And yeah, that warp was deep."

  She heard his comm buzz. "Wait one," said Buford, picking up the comm and then muting his microphone. She watched him answer the call, and then watched his eyebrows raise about halfway to the top of his skull. Then he mouthed, "Got it, out," switched the comm back off, and unmuted his mic.

  "That was STC at Clarke," he said. "I guess your dad is coming back. Another unbelievably deep warp is headed this way from Devlin's Star." He cocked his head at her. "Any idea what that was about?"

  Ariela shrugged. "About all I can assume is he went to get Raven. That's where she was supposed to be traveling, and I know something went wrong on her way there; I heard her call out, very faintly, not long before the Darkness transport – which is what I assume it was – blew through Phobos."

  "How the hell did he get there and back in only—" Buford looked at his comm. "Only six hours, round trip to Devlin's? Ari, that's a six day warp trip, one way."

  "I know he was working on a mod," said Ariela, thoughtfully. "Let me see something." She brought up a calculator in another holotab screen, and punched in some numbers, frowned, then punched in some more numbers. "Warp 6," she announced.

  "What?"

  "He got the Bandersnatch up to a light year per minute," she translated. "Warp 5 is a light year per hour. If that's what he really did, wow, 60 times Warp 5 is a major game changer." She shook her head. "I imagine he went warp because he didn't want the Darkness to see a rotation shock at Devlin's."

  She closed her eyes, "looked" out in the general direction of Devlin's Star, and saw the warp streaking in. "That is something to watch."

  Buford looked surprised, then chuckled. "I forget you can see that far in the Mesh."

  "If he plans to slow down for Clarke, he'll have to cut warp about right . . . now. And out he came, he's out around Mars orbit and slowing down fast." She looked closer. "Oh, shit."

  "What?"

  "Ship's leaking air. I have to get out there in the Tumtum!"

  "Go, girl, don't let me keep you sittin' there."

  She cut off the holotab without further ceremony, then ran back over past the Tumtum to the office. "Fred! Delaney!" she cried. "I need you both on the ship, now. We have to go rescue Dad and his gang, I'll explain aboard."

  "Job well done something something harder job something something," muttered Delaney, resigned, as she and her father got to their feet.

  ◆

  "Thanks, hon," grunted Wolff, exhausted.

  By the time the Tumtum had latched on to the Bandersnatch, the latter ship's air reserves were just about gone. They'd made it almost to lunar orbit, but had to stop decelerating there, simply because the ship was close to rupturing completely under drive, so the ship was in free fall and heading past Earth for Venus. Harbinger, Raven, Rafe, and the generals had transferred quickly, and shut the airlocks between the two ships to prevent any further air loss from the Tumtum.

  Beam had already disappeared back to his world, to take care of the things he'd promised to do.

  "What the hell happened, Dad?" asked Ariela, angry and frightened at the same time.

  "Warp 6 happened," he replied. "Apparently there is a lot of sand in warp. Or something that's abrasive as hell. Because it just ate the living hell out of our hull. You saw the airlock hatch."

  "But that's hullmetal!"

  "Yeah," said von Barronov, equally tired. "Whatever it is, it's harder than hullmetal. Or at least, abrasive enough to chip away at hullmetal, if you give it enough time. We just never see that kind of erosion from it, because it's not present in any major quantity at Warp 5."

  "Don't yell at them, Mom," said Raven. "They got us here in a hurry because you've got a big problem I know how to take care of."

  Ariela looked at her, and then at Rafe, who was still holding her hand. "And this big lug is part of that?"

  "Ma'am, Sergeant Rafe Sorenson, FTSA2," Rafe introduced himself.

  "Yeah, he's one of ours," interjected Delaney. "Was on his way to Devlin's with the crew on a counter-piracy mission. So don't give him a hard time, Mom. And you met him years ago, at the groundbreaking for the Grand Mosque on al-Saḥra'."

  "It's okay, Delaney. I remember now. That was quite a day." Ariela looked at Rafe. "Nice to re-meet you, Sergeant, particularly given the way you're holding my oldest daughter's hand."

  Raven blushed. Rafe just looked, well, like Rafe – unfazed.

  "Look, Ari," said Wolff, "we need to get over to that bowling-ball transport and dump it into the Abyss, like Raven did with the one that attacked her on the Star. I want Delaney to watch and possibly help. Rafe is the power conduit for that, though I don't know where he's going to get as much power as he got from the Star of the Orient. And we need to call Beam back to tell us where the damn transport is."

  "And I am here," said Beam, reappearing in the aft section behind the last row of seats.

  Raven and Rafe started, and stared.

  "You'll be read in," grunted Wolff. "Ignore for now the fact that a guy who looks and dresses like H. Beam Piper just materialized out of thin air aboard the Tumtum. It's complicated."

  "And he's got a buddy who goes around looking like Grandpa Heinlein," chimed in von Barronov.

  Wolff rolled his eyes.

  "Who is piloting?" asked Beam. "I see you should have listene
d to me about Warp 6."

  "No comment. Ariela is piloting. And before you ask, yes, she can drag the Bandersnatch along with us. We're not leaving her sit here for some asshole to come along and claim as salvage."

  "Very well. And Sergeant-Major Fox will navigate? We will need Delaney for other things, along with Raven and Sergeant Sorenson. In the meantime, Brigadier General Wolff, Sergeant-Major Fox, please head for the coordinates I've placed in your comms."

  There was some shifting of people and everyone got into a seat except Beam, since there were only eight seats in the pinnace. On the other hand, Beam's avatar didn't really need a seat.

  "Warp 1," said von Barronov, "is probably all the faster you want to go, with the derelict attached at the airlock."

  "Okay." Ari looked back at her dad and her uncle, who both looked pained. "You'll be able to fix her, right?"

  "I think so," said Wolff, absently. "She probably just needs new hull plating."

  Fox indicated the set coordinates. Ariela called back, "All passengers, strap in and take hold. We are moving in 3, 2, 1," and she threw in the singularity drive at Warp 1. The Tumtum dropped into warp and started to move out, the Bandersnatch still hanging on to its side.

  "As we get closer," said Beam to Delaney, Raven, and Rafe, "you will be able to see the transport. It has not yet opened, as far as I can tell, and I don't know what it will do when we approach. Rafe may be wondering from where power may be obtained. Since the transport will be flirting with the orbit of your first planet by the time we reach it, it should be possible, when not in warp, to obtain power directly from the star."

  "Wait, what?" asked Delaney, surprised. "Two questions – first, how does Rafe figure in this as a power source, and second, how do we pull power from a star?"

  Rafe and Raven looked at each other. "Here's what we know," said Raven. "We were in warp. That 'transport' thing hove in and matched warp with us. Both Rafe and I could see it, but Rafe doesn't apparently have the same level of ability I have to look deeply into this Mesh thing. But he was able to redirect power, somehow, from the ship's fusion burners into a form I could use to open a singularity next to the transport, which sucked it in and, I guess, destroyed it."

  "Oh my," murmured Delaney, her eyes wide. "That's just too cool for school. I wonder if Harb could learn to do that."

  Harb grunted. "Maybe someday, after you read me in," he said.

  Beam added, "In fairness, you opened a rift in spacetime that extended all the way down to the borders of our bubble universe, and poked into the antimatter bubble universe next to us – what we call the Abyss, and with which your mother is well-acquainted. It was technically not a singularity as such. And I want Delaney to learn how to do what you did."

  Raven looked askance at Beam. "And who are you, exactly?"

  "Honey, it's okay," Delaney reassured her. "Just accept that he's here and he knows what he's talking about. We'll brief you in later. In the meantime, his name is Beam."

  "Yeah. I got that earlier. Alien?"

  "Not . . . exactly." Delaney looked at her sister. "Seriously. Just let it go till we read you in. Grumpaw's right; it's complicated."

  "Raven, your sister is wise," said Rafe, smiling at his Major, who winked back.

  Raven sighed, hugely. "Okay. Whatever. I need a drink. But it can wait, I guess."

  "We’re here," announced Ariela, dropping the ship out of warp. "Can you see it?"

  "Yes," chorused Raven, Rafe, and Delaney.

  "Same as before – that thing is alive," said Raven. "And it just noticed we're here. It's trying to open up like the other one did." She unbuckled and stood; so did Rafe, and after a moment, so did Delaney.

  "Just gonna watch," she said. "I'm not sure jumping in would be good for the babes."

  Raven looked at her. "You're pregnant?" she gasped, with a huge smile. "Oh, honey!" She lunged at Delaney and wrapped her in a big hug, which Delaney returned with interest. "That's the best news I've heard in years. Twins? Yes, of course, twins. So cute! A month along, you think?"

  "About that," laughed Delaney, untwining herself from her sister's grasp. "But we have more important things to worry about, right now."

  "Good work, Harb, despoiler of my sister," said Raven, jokingly, to Harbinger, who just grinned.

  Rafe tapped her on the shoulder. "Raven. I think I have located the power source. We need to dump that thing now, before the monster comes out."

  "Of course." She turned to him and they embraced.

  "Wow," said Delaney. "This is necessary?"

  "It was on the Star. And if it isn't here, I don't care," fired back Raven, but with a grin. Rafe just looked at Delaney with a "what can I do?" look on his face.

  "You two need to get a room after this is over."

  "Date first," said Raven. "Grumpaw said he'd pay." She looked at Rafe. "Okay, let's kill this thing so we can go home."

  They closed their eyes.

  The ship bucked a little underfoot.

  "Whoa," said Ariela. "Dampers didn't quite get that. Wait. No. Something hit us." She started scanning to try to find out what it was; Fox started running another scan, too.

  "Big rift forming outside the ship, sunward of the ball," said Delaney, awed. "Big rift. Holy shit. I think I see how they're doing it, though. Heh. The ball is heading straight for it. Gonna flush it just like . . . Raven! It's opening! What the hell is that thing?"

  "It's a Darkness construct, best we can figure so far," said Wolff. "If it's like the one we saw in Iraq. Big, black, many limbs, lots of claws? And when I say big, I mean, fucking huge?"

  "That's what I'm seeing . . . but it's not going to make it out, because there goes the transport, right down the rift, and man that's a deep rift." She reached out with her Mesh sense to watch it all the way to the bottom, saw it cross the event horizon out of the matter universe into the antimatter universe, and . . . explode. "It's gone."

  "Don't close the rift!" shouted Ariela, suddenly. "There's another one! That's what hit us!"

  Delaney reached out, found, and grabbed at the new ball. "Whoa!" she shouted. "That's heavy!"

  Help me push it to the rift, came from Raven. I can't talk, can't spare the energy.

  Talking to me through the Mesh, we've done that. Okay. Pushing.

  The two women pushed, hard, but the going was slow.

  This one seems a lot more massive than the other one.

  Ladies, came from Rafe, I won't be able to hold this power level steady, much longer.

  Mom, help!

  Ariela stiffened, then closed her eyes.

  Okay, girls. Here we go. One more big push.

  They shoved, hard, through the Mesh. The transport moved a little farther, then finally started sliding down the gravitational "hill" into the rift itself.

  Got it! And . . . boom!

  Rafe, drop the power!

  Rafe, hanging on for dear life, suddenly went limp. "Power off," he murmured.

  "Rift is closing," gasped Raven.

  "You did this on the Star?" Delaney gasped along with her. "You are a strong one, sister of mine."

  "I have tracked the latest transport back to its source," Beam interjected. "As we hoped, their fleet is still several tens of millions of light-years away. Much farther out than, say, the galaxy you call Andromeda."

  "How do we send something back?" growled Wolff. "Preferably something big, nuclear, and with plenty of gigatons."

  Beam paused, obviously calculating. "A frigate might be able to rotate that far, with my help," he said, cautiously. "As for a large nuclear explosive, you would need to come up with something." He raised a finger. "This won't stop them, you know. It will merely slow them down. Their fleet is far too large and dispersed to be affected by something like that."

  Wolff considered. "I suppose it wouldn't make that much difference, per se, unless perhaps we could get whatever we use close to their leadership."

  "Oh, holy Mother, I know just the thing," exclaimed von Barronov, snappin
g his fingers.

  "What?" asked Wolff, raising an eyebrow.

  "Think about Jupiter," replied von Barronov, with a grin.

  "Oh, no," groaned Wolff. "A prototype Alcubierre singularity drive? But we don’t even have one to donate to them, we scrapped all of that model."

  "Yes, we do – the one off the Lotus Flower."

  "Oh. Oh, ho ho ho. I like the way you think. Is it still locked up in storage on Luna?"

  "Yep. We were going to take it apart one day to see what made it tick, and to see if we could fix it."

  "We have the analysis of the . . . " Suddenly, Wolff stopped, slapped his forehead, and looked ruefully at the rest of the crew. "Sorry, Chris, we'll have to continue this discussion in a SCIF. It's classified and nobody here is cleared for it but the two of us, Buford, and Beam."

  "And me," added Ariela, looking a little wan, but recovering from her effort.

  "Oh, yeah. We had to read you in, since it was part of that conversation we had about getting the Lotus back to Earth."

  "And I think it's a fabulous use of a resource with which you're never going to get around to doing anything, otherwise," she needled him.

  "Well. Get us back to Clarke, and after we hand the Bandersnatch over to the yard for overhaul, you can take us to Armstrong and we'll start working on it."

  Ariela looked at her husband. "You heard the Commandant."

  Fox pointed at the console. "I've had the coordinates set up for the past ten minutes."

  "Everybody buckled in? Beam excluded, of course . . . Okay, I'm going to Warp 1 in 3, 2, 1," and she snapped the switch for the singularity drive. The Tumtum powered up and surged into warp, headed home.

  "You understand I am only theoretically convinced we can rotate a frigate that far," Beam said to Wolff, privately.

  "Yes," replied Wolff, "but I want to try anyway, and if we succeed, to send a message, just like Truman did with the only two atomic bombs he had at his disposal in 1945. Maybe if we disrupt their operations sufficiently, and they think we might do it again if they keep it up, they'll stop lobbing these transports at us for a while."