Ix Chel asked, not cold, "You okay, brother?"
"I'm—" I don't know how I am.
"Relation?" Ix Chel asked.
Zack Cade nodded, then remembered that Ix couldn’t see him. He said, "Dad."
"You never said your dad was MIA.”
"He never was MIA. He came back to Earth."
"What?"
"My Dad was never missing. He died on Earth. In fact all records say he never left Earth."
"This don't say that, brother." Umber moved the drone around the floating tracer. "The man was here."
Gretch said, "Look, Zack. I don't know what came back to Earth, but that couldn't have been your Dad. Did he look that same when he came back? You sure it was him?"
Zack said, "I didn't see him when he left. I didn't exist yet."
"How can you be sure whatever came back was even human?"
"Because it was my Dad you bung! It married my mom and made me! It raised me!"
It spent four years working in Supply and the rest of his life listening to people call Dagger Team Seven a fraud.
"Well, he and his ship aren't here,” Gretch said.
“He ran!" said Rittenhouse.
Zack said quietly, "If you weren't my brother in arms I would call you outside."
Rittenhouse was quick to reverse course. "That was probably the least bright thing I have ever said in my life, brother. I am heartily sorry."
Zack gave the universal forget-about-it grunt. He said, "My Dad didn't run."
Maybe he did run. Zack’s Dad didn't remember how he got home.
No. It was time for some faith.
"Gotcha!"
That was Umber’s voice. His remote drone had just snagged Cade's tracer.
“That can’t be real,” Gretch said. “AC Cade’s tracer can’t be here if AC Cade made it alive to homespace. Nothing comes through that Intersection without a tracer. Anyone going home without a tracer would've been vaporized at the Intersection."
"My Dad wasn't vaporized," Zack said. "And I tell you something else. He came back without the five year time lag."
"Oh now that is just not possible," Umber said.
"Don’t care. It happened.”
"Well how did they explain that?"
“They?”
“They. The spooks. The cryptos.
Zack gave a brittle laugh. "They? Explain? No one explained snot. They erased the team. They erased the whole team. Why'd they let me become a Dagger? Why did they even let me try out for Daggers?"
"This is beginning to sound like compartmentalization run amok,” Rittenhouse said. “There’s an old joke—not sounding all that funny just now: my mission is so secret I don't even know what it is. The crypts must've classified it as need-to-know, and didn’t assign that need to enough persons who ought might should’ve better known.”
Morris Umber retrieved the dead pilots’ tracers. Dagger ships carried surgical spiders programmed for the job, so it was neatly done.
Zack's ship advised quietly, "Your heart rate is too fast. Your blood pressure is elevated."
"Thank you John Henry. I'm aware of that."
"What is this symptomatic of?"
"It means I'm all kinds of pissed off."
No one had believed his Dad. I didn't believe him! Dad didn't deserve that. AC Cade was everything he said he was.
Zack inhaled. Exhaled. It wasn’t his station to question what the cryptos did. I'm here to stop Rutogs from invading my home.
“You all here, Cade?” Rittenhouse asked.
Zack snarled, "Don't we have a mission to execute?"
Rittenhouse commanded, "Form up. Call in."
“Umber, aye.”
“Parras, aye.”
“Gretch, aye.”
“Neuman, aye.”
“Cade, let's go kill Rutogs, aye.”
And the whole team gave a single grunt Hrooh! As they leapt into the folding warp.
Dagger Team Nine stabbed deeper into Rutog space, folding in the light years. Zack’s thoughts churned. They circled back to the Shimmer storm.
"John Henry?"
"Attentive," John Henry said.
"Who sounded the alert that the Rutogs were throwing Shimmer at us?"
"One of us."
"Us?"
"One of us Dagger ships."
"Which ship?"
"I don't know."
"Well ask your mates, damn it to hell."
None of Team Nine’s Daggers admitted to speaking the warning.
"Then who spoke the warning?" Zack demanded again.
"A Dagger ship," said John Henry.
"John Henry, you took orders from an unknown source."
All the ships had responded to the alert, not just John Henry. None of them saw anything wrong in that.
"It was one of us," John Henry said, as if that explained everything.
“Define us.”
“Us Dagger ships.”
And then there was that voice again, on the Dagger channel. “Check your instruments. See the mass.”
A chill raised Zack’s skin up his back. He was deep in the heart of absolute nowhere and his ship’s system was fugged.
“Cade to team, our systems are compromised.”
“Yes,” said the low crumbly voice. “Re-set your systems.”
A blazing streak speared across the void, visible through Zack’s canopy. It had the appearance of a standard-issue karit flare. And suddenly the entire non-existent sky on his starboard side flared nova-bright and reflected off a titanic mass—a Rutog cloud ship, big as a moon, looming close enough to spit on. Gort yelled, “Enemy SIGHTED!”
“Rittenhouse to team. Get clear.”
John Henry leapt away with the rest of the squadron to the designated panic coordinates.
“Where’s Ritt?” Ix Chel asked, as Rittenhouse’s ship jumped into existence at the muster coordinates. “I am here. I left one of my virus warheads inside the Rutog.”
From a sensor Rittenhouse left behind at the scene, the Daggers could see the granular insides of the Rutog cloud ship swirl. Black tendrils formed inside the turbulence. The blackness spread like fast cancer, shriveling, collapsing, and solidifying.
“It works!” Umber crowed.
The surface of the Rutog mass pocked, crumpled, and fell in on itself.
Rittenhouse was too hellfire angry and alarmed to be happy about that. The team could all hear Rittenhouse over the open com roaring at his ship, Sherry, “How does something that big sneak up on you!”
Zack roared at his own ship, John Henry,” “Same question! You let a Rutog mass get that close to us!”
John Henry sounded apologetic. “My processes were looping. I didn’t realize it until I was re-set.”
“How’d you get yourself re-set?”
“The other Dagger broke the loop.”
Zack was inhaling to yell when Gretch’s voice came over the common com. “Who shot the flare?”
“And what is that?” Umber sent over the com a visual playback of his ship’s sensor readings.
A hard-edged silhouette entered the picture. Played back in slow motion, a small black spearhead moved across the face of the Rutog mass.
"That is a Dagger ship."
It didn’t have the number nine on its hull.
5.
The same warm crumbly voice that had warned the Daggers when they were about to be bounced by Rutog sounded again now.
"I am Dagger ship 1GE9 85EE. My pilot is Tag ID 93845793."
Zack coughed.
"What unit?" Lt. Rittenhouse demanded.
"Dagger Team Seven," said the ship, then posed back authentication challenges to Dagger Team Nine.
Gretch’s incredulous laugh made him sound like a loon. "This damn thing is questioning our identity!"
Zack barked, like bringing a recruit to attention: "Boxer!"
The crumbly responded, "Boxer, aye."
Zack imagined he could feel stun-ness from his mates over the com.
Gort squawked, "You know its name, Zack?"
Zack ignored Gort. "What happened to your team, Boxer? Where is the rest of your team?"
"Boxer, aye. My team is dead. You found them. I detect that you carry the pilots’ tracers.”
Rittenhouse spoke urgently, "Zack, that's a faker. That is not a proper Dagger number or pilot tag number or pilot name he gave us. The unit is bogus."
“Of course his identification is going to come out bogus from our database,” Zack said. "What happened to your team, Boxer?"
Rittenhouse said, "Zack are you hearing what I'm telling you?"
"I'm hearing you, Ritt. Boxer, answer the question. How did your team die?"
"Boxer, aye. Rutogs corrupted the ships' internal systems. The ships turned on their pilots. The ships let the Rutog board."
"Did you turn on your pilot?” Zack asked. Felt like he’d swallowed an angry rat.
"Negative. I wasn't with them when it happened.”
“You broke formation!”
“I was not in formation. I had a hull breach.”
Zack moved his ship around the other Dagger ship. He could see it now. The entire length of Boxer’s belly had been flayed open.
Boxer added, “I sent my pilot home. When I approached the team again, the ships were dead. Their computers may have recognized that they were compromised beyond recovery. I know they self destructed."
Zack's own Dagger did have orders not to allow himself to be reverse engineered.
"You didn't self destruct." Zack said, an accusation.
"My system wasn't compromised."
"Were you not?” Zack said, sour.
“I picked up the warning transmissions on approach. I severed my team links, re-routed my internal message routines and instated signal gates. You should do the same. Your ships are vulnerable to Rutog influence.”
Zack heard Gort muttering, “He’s got that part right.”
“Boxer, where is your tracer?”
"Boxer, aye. I destroyed my tracer."
"Sure you did," said Gort.
"Why did you destroy your tracer, Boxer?"
"Boxer, aye. The Rutog track us by our tracers. It's how they find you. It's how I saw you coming."
Rittenhouse barked orders. "Ix. Keep a wide watch. Umber, re-route all our systems. I want signal gates on my signal gates. That cloud ship should never have got close to us."
"Aye, aye," said Ix Chel Parras and Morris Umber.
Gort Neuman was snorting. "Oh, This isn't real. This is real full flavored bullshit. You’re listening to this deserter, Lieutenant?"
“This deserter wasn’t a ship that let a Rutog cloud ship get within kicking distance of us without so much as a by the way while we slept!” Rittenhouse said.
And it wasn’t going to hurt anyone for them to bulk up their system security.
Zack forced himself to ask, "Boxer, what happened to—your pilot."
"Boxer, aye. I sent AC Cade home. You have his tracer."
Zack’s team had retrieved AC Cade's tracer from the broken Dagger fort. Boxer was reading its signal.
"How did the tracer get removed from my—from AC Cade?"
"My spiders took his tracer out of him."
Spiders were the Daggers’ remote hands.
"I destroyed my tracer,” Boxer added. “The Rutogs find us by our tracers. I put that in a written report when I sent AC Cade home."
AC Cade went home over twenty years ago. Someone knew twenty years ago that Rutogs could track tracers. They also knew that Rutogs could compromise Dagger ships’ systems.
Umber said, "Did I sleep through part of a briefing? Or is this new material?"
"We have the best Intelligence service in the known galaxy,” Rittenhouse said. “They get all the intelligence and they keep it."
Surprised his own voice worked, Zack demanded, "Boxer. How did you 'send AC Cade home?'"
"Boxer, aye. I sent AC Cade home on life support in a medical bag. Is he alive?"
Rittenhouse took over the questioning. "Boxer. Did Dagger Team Eight get home?"
"Boxer, aye. I don't know of Team Eight."
“How can you not know? They've been here in Rutog space for months.”
"Unknown. It is possible they are too distant.” It was a fact that tracers didn’t have infinite range. “I have not been monitoring the zone around the Intersection."
"Where have you been?"
"I have been carrying out orders."
"What are your orders?"
"To locate the Rutog command and control center."
"Find it?" Umber asked. Boxer might be able to detect the sarcasm in Umber's voice but the ship responded simply. "Yes."
Zack couldn't stop himself from saying, "Really?"
"Don't believe it," Gort said.
"Boxer's been out here over twenty years,” Zack said. “He might have found it."
"What makes you think he's been out here more than twenty years?"
"I'm twenty years old," Zack said.
"And when were you going to tell us all this scheisse, Cade?"
"Right after I confessed to being the heir and crown prince of the Intergalactic Bovine Empire. What would you have done if I told you ‘By the way, guys, my Dad was a pilot in Dagger Team Seven!’"
Rittenhouse answered evenly, "That is an uncomfortably compelling argument. I see how that might be a bit of a deterrent, sir. But in the final word we are your mates.”
Zack was not a crier and he wasn't going to start now, but his eyes were stinging. Rittenhouse just told him that he would’ve trusted him no matter what.
Zack nodded, then realizing he was not on visual, he answered a thick wobbly, "Yeah."
Team Nine circled the wagons. Boxer traveled alongside.
Boxer offered a data dump—twenty years of reconnaissance. Rittenhouse accepted cautiously. He fed the download into a discrete system. When the database was pronounced clean, Rittenhouse opened it. He reacted with such horror, Umber was ready to jettison it into space. Rittenhouse wasn’t horrified because it was infected. He was horrified at the scale of the enemy build up.
“How big is that?” Ix Chel pointed at one of the plots on the screen.
Boxer answered. "That one is one astronomical unit in diameter."
"That one? There are others?"
"Twelve that I have found," said Boxer and brought the coordinates for the others to the forefront.
“They’re moving,” said Rittenhouse.
“Yes,” said Boxer. “They are going to the Intersection.”
“Hit them at home!” Gort said. “Attack their home world. That'll turn them around.”
“Not advised," Boxer said. “The enemy will not turn back. Their worlds are dying.”
"Outstanding,” Rittenhouse said. “How long have they got?"
"Between five thousand and five hundred thousand years."
"No. I can't wait that long. We need them dead now."
Umber didn’t sound hopeful. “We have an invasion force measured in solar masses that travels by warps. How are we supposed to call for reinforcements when it takes a message five years to get home?”
“Don't give them five years,” Rittenhouse said. “Hit them now.”
"With six ships?"
"Seven," said Boxer.
Boxer guided the Dagger team to the last Rutog mustering zone he had on record.
“There’s nothing here!” You could hear the I knew it! in Gretch’s voice.
“They were here,” Umber said. “There are significant trace molecules with a huge heat signature. This was a definitely warp stage.”
“Which way did they go?”
“Oh hell, we know which way.”
“The vector is not in question,” Rittenhouse said. “And it will take the Rutog cloud legions considerably more time to generate a warp to move battle groups of the magnitude of planetary masses than it will for us to move seven Dagger ships. I have every faith we will catch up.”
“Holy God,” Zack breathed.
“Boxer is a righteous ship,” Rittenhouse said.
The gaseous beings mustered in their millions inside vast cloud ships.
“We are engaging continents in a battle to the death,” Zack murmured.
The continents hadn’t shown interest in their mortal foe yet. "Do they have a god?"
"I can show them a pillar of fire," Rittenhouse said.
“I thought you had a thing about not taking the name of the Lord in vain."
"In vain is not my intention. Let us read to them the Old Testament, my brethren." Saying so Rittenhouse launched his second missile into the nearest mass.
The missile pierced the cloud ship’s membrane and stabbed into the clustered aliens within. The nanovirius released.
Black tendrils formed inside the mass. The blackness spread wide and shriveled small. The cloud ship contracted, quivering.
“Die, monster, die!” Gretch yelled.
“Yeah!”
The interior of the mass was collapsing, the metananovirus multiplying exponentially. The pilots were cheering, when suddenly the cloud erupted. Out spewed the infected mass, taking a great slab of healthy Rutogs out with it.
The cloud ship’s membrane healed over.
The ejected nanites finished solidifying the Rutogs available to them, and went inert.
The cheering stopped. Zack blinked. “Are they done?”
“Yes,” Umber said, unhappy. “Those nanites don’t reactivate.”
“The missile didn’t penetrate deep enough,” Ix Chel said. “It needs to bite deeper.”
“Make a hole,” Gort said. “A deep one.”
“Go,” Rittenhouse told Ix Chel and Gort.
Ix Chel fired an incendiary into the mass, drilling deep.
Rittenhouse sent his third warhead into the resultant hole.
The Rutogs spat the missile out entire.
“Boxer! Fetch that!”
“Boxer, aye. Fetching, aye.”
“This is bad,” Ix Chel said. “They're coughing up the virus.”
Rittenhouse fired his remaining missiles in quick successio into the nearest cloud ship.
The payload had only began to take effect when the cloud ejected the warheads along with enough healthy Rutogs to get the infection out of the mass clean.
Ix Chel shot her entire payload into the cloud ship. The Rutog ejected the infections then moved away, diminished but far from dead. It was only as big as North Dakota now.
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