Marque of Caine

by Charles E Gannon

  “Actually, according to Eku, we will mis-shift.”

  Hsontlosh’s mouth curled half around its axis. “And has the factotum told you what that means?”

  “He was about to explain when you started that countdown clock.” Riordan nodded at the shift chronometer’s steadily decreasing numbers. Three minutes remained.

  Hsontlosh cycled his lids slowly. “This is what happens during a mis-shift. You will transition out of this volume of space-time successfully, because your commencement coordinates are fixed. But the damage to the navigation system will corrupt your terminal coordinates, and so, your reexpression into normative space-time shall be uncontrolled.

  “You might come out as a spray of energetic particles. You might reexpress in the void between stars, your drive and capacitors burned and useless. Or you might never emerge at all, dissipating as a wash of energy so diffuse that it cannot be discerned. A hundred other outcomes are imaginable, but all equate to this: to mis-shift is to die.”

  “So is crossing over into Ktor space,” countered Riordan, “or being stuck here on the ragged edges of it.”

  The loji’s gills burbled in open derision. “Low odds of survival are better than no odds at all, human.”

  A new voice—Bannor’s—responded. “True. But you’ve got the odds backward, Hsontlosh.”

  Caine turned, saw that Bannor, Duncan, and Yaargraukh had survived.

  Hsontlosh’s lids flickered. “Why do you say that I ‘have the odds backward,’ Colonel Rulaine?”

  Duncan’s voice was still hoarse from the gas. “He means that at least our odds of surviving a mis-shift are better than zero. So they’re better than our chance of surviving captivity under the Ktor.”

  “You might escape, even from the Ktor.”

  “Maybe. But you know who won’t escape?” Duncan jerked his head aftward. “Those ancient factotums. The Ktor will find a way to tear every last secret out them. Secrets that might enable them to destroy Earth, the Collective, even the loji Rings.”

  Hsontlosh’s eyes opened wide, turned toward Riordan. “I have studied you, Commodore. You, at least, have an enlightened understanding of the axiom that where there is life, there is hope. But to mis-shift is to abandon all hope.”

  Caine crossed his arms. “If you think that hope only gives you a reason to live, then you don’t really understand hope. Sometimes, in order to preserve it for others, hope is what gives you the courage to die.”

  Hsontlosh turned away abruptly. “There is no point in commending the use of reason to beings that lack it. So I simply repeat my offer: the first two who surrender shall be concealed from the Ktor. You have half a minute to contemplate the alternatives: bondage or oblivion. At least one of you will succumb to your reflex for self-preservation; do not be among those who miss that opportunity.”

  Dora leaned her head sideways, peering down the Ruger’s sights. “Do I take him, Boss?”

  “Only if he’s still in your line of fire when that countdown clock hits three seconds.” There were twenty seconds left.

  “I thought honorable humans refused to shoot their adversaries in the back.”

  Bannor stepped forward so that he was next to Riordan. “This time, we can live with it.”

  “If you destroy this console, you will not live at all.”

  “You’ll forgive the irony,” Caine said, “but we can live with that, too.” He glanced at Dora, then at the timer: three seconds.

  Riordan nodded.

  Dora’s grim smile widened; she squeezed the trigger three times in rapid sequence.

  Each round hit, leaving splashes of maroon blood and orange lymph fluids among the constellation of circles and whorls that spread away from Hsontlosh’s spine like still-born wings. The first bullet lodged in the skeletal cage that protected his heart, killing him instantly. The second and third bullets fully penetrated his torso, hitting the panel behind him. Flakes spalled outward as the impact-resistant surface ablated, slowing the rounds. But not enough.

  The second bullet, by some freakish quirk of fate, managed to hit only one inactive backup coupling before it embedded in the rear of the console. But the third bullet tore into the neofiber-optic coordinate relays less than half a second before the shift engaged.

  Unlike typical Dornaani shifts, Caine did not plummet down into nothingness before rising back up. Rather, he felt his body being ripped apart, his mind stretching as though it might tear. And then he felt—

  Nothing.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  MARCH 2125

  LOCATION UNKNOWN

  Caine could suddenly see again, feel again…

  The instant he realized I’m alive! was also the instant he vomited.

  The rest of his crew were doing the same, simultaneously discovering the mis-shift’s improbably coherent outcome and their own profound nausea as they floated in darkness. The emergency lights had failed and the ship was no longer connected to a spinbuoy.

  The ragged chorus of retching almost caused Riordan to begin a second bout of his own, but he swallowed against it and turned on his helmet lights. “Sound off.”

  Everyone did, although Yaargraukh, not being familiar with all human military commands, lagged a moment behind. Other helmet lights shot sudden, bright beams through the darkness.

  Riordan stretched a magnetic sole toward the deck, got his footing, and slow-walked down to the navigation station. He leaned a hand on the twice-punctured, and now completely dark, console and surveyed the bridge. Not a single control was illuminated. Caine hadn’t expected any different, but—as Hsontlosh had so eloquently expressed the truth he had so poorly understood—there was always a reason to hope.

  “Where the hell are we?” groaned Dora.

  “No way of knowing,” Duncan groaned back. “Need to retract those cockpit, er, bridge covers.”

  “We don’t have the juice to do either, Duncan,” Riordan said, crossing his arms. “And no way we’re going to get enough from these suits, or the bots’ power cells, to make that happen. Besides, keeping power in these suits is the first order of business. So shut down their primary systems.”

  “What?” It was the first time Dora had ever said something that ended on a high, rising pitch. “Why?”

  “Because that extends our survival time. Not only did Hsontlosh crash the ship’s systems, but it looks like the mis-shift has fried or drained everything that still had any juice in it. So we’re not just without life support. We don’t even have a way to filter the air or concentrate higher O2 levels in a smaller section of the ship.

  “That gives us two days. On the third, we’ll get woozy, then stupid. On the fourth, hallucinations, hypoxia, then death. But there are still ways to extend that time.” He tapped his life support unit. “Our personal supplies give us another twelve hours. Plus we can tap whatever O2 is in the repressurization and refill tanks in the airlock, one of the few parts of the ship we can still reach.” He started toward the yawning hole of the iris valve. “Now, let’s help the others.”

  * * *

  Noradrenal response and mental exhaustion had Riordan longing for just fifteen minutes to sit and decompress, but neither he nor the rest of his team could afford that luxury. Not until they knew more about their situation.

  Once Eku’s right arm was splinted, he pointed out a small access panel in the bridge that provided manual access to an array of primitive analog meters. Their sole intended purpose was to provide reactivation teams a quick look at the onboard levels of primary consumables, even if the ship had no power.

  As expected, the ship’s main tanks were entirely out of fuel. However, what Eku called a restart tank—fuel that was isolated from the main power-generation or thrust systems—was approximately half full. Normally used to facilitate the jump-start of the main plant after long years, or centuries, in depot storage, it could provide a few hours of regular power or a few minutes of thrust before being exhausted. The capacitors and reserve batteries were drained. And al
though the bioactive and water reclamation elements of the life support system were well stocked, it was all just so much inert matter without electricity.

  Riordan reported the findings when the crew regathered on the bridge, asked if there were questions. Craig Girten, whose fear was magnified by his lack of knowledge about the machines and skills upon which their slim hopes of survival depended, asked, “Is there any good news?”

  Caine smiled, waited until Craig had finished coughing. The smoke had not been kind to his lungs or Tagawa’s. “Actually, yes, one bright spot. According to our suits’ dosimeters, REM accumulation is quite tolerable. Either the ambient radiation is low, the ship’s own passive shielding is keeping it out, or both. So, for a change, rads will be the last thing that kills us.”

  The seasoned space travelers in the group grinned at the black humor. The others did not.

  The only other question came from Dora. “I already know the answer to this, but someone’s gotta ask: when do we wake up the other four?”

  Riordan nodded. “Until we get the final data point we need, we don’t know if the Second Watch is better off in their cold cells living on the integral emergency battery power, or out here with us, increasing our oxygen consumption by almost thirty percent.”

  Newton nodded. “And when do we get that final data point?”

  “Right now.” Riordan stood. “I’m sure all of you would like to be involved, but that’s not possible. We don’t have enough equipment and we can’t spare the oxygen. So it’s going to be four of us, chosen on the basis of relevant experience and fitness for duty.” Caine tapped his chest, then pointed to Bannor, Duncan, and Dora. “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  Riordan insisted on being the first through the airlock’s outer hatch, not because it was the privilege of rank, but because it was the curse of being the commander. Whatever they saw when they emerged would irrevocably determine their fate. And he wanted one moment of advance warning to shape his reaction. And if necessary, orders.

  Caine emerged into darkness, the flank of the ship as lightless as the space that surrounded it. The distant stars were sharp points of light: motionless, solemn, even ominous. Here, they did not twinkle, did not excite sensations of timeless and titanic majesty. In space, the stars were as cold and pitiless as nature itself.

  Riordan held his breath, examined the heavens that he could see: nothing except those ice-bright chips in the deep black. As the others followed him out, he triggered a set of puffs from the compact Dornaani maneuver unit. Turning slowly and heading toward the upper surface of the ship, he kept his eyes aft, waiting for the first stabilizer to rise into view.

  When it did, it was a whitish shark fin against the surrounding dark. Riordan managed not to gasp or cheer. “Join me,” he said quietly into his radio. He drifted higher.

  A moment later, he cleared the top of the ship’s slight ventral hump and was blinded by the most wonderful and improbable sunrise he had ever seen. As he did, the others spied the light reflecting off the stabilizer. Caine heard their suppressed sighs.

  Against all odds, against every prediction or reason for hope, they had arrived near a star. And where there was a star, there were likely to be planets. That didn’t mean they’d survive. Most planets were lethal, and the great majority of the remainder were savagely inhospitable. But a star meant hope, whereas to have discovered themselves stranded in the trackless void of interstellar space would have been the grimmest of all prospects.

  “It’s a G-class star,” muttered Riordan, “if you can believe that.”

  “Jesus, Caine,” Duncan breathed as he rose up into the full light, “I’m not sure what’s harder to believe: how bad our luck can be, or how good.”

  Riordan smiled, was about to agree, but then noticed that as he continued to rise, the leading edge of the far wing was also lit, albeit dimly. My God, it can’t be. Riordan boosted higher.

  “Caine,” shouted Bannor, “are you okay? What are you doing?”

  Riordan watched the ship drop away beneath him, knew he’d come to the end of his tether any moment, watched the far wing-rim.

  And was unable to suppress a gasp when a planet appeared over it, seeming to rise up before him. It was awash in blue oceans and the white whorls of marine storms. The continents were daunting, however: expanses the color of sand and rust, riven in many places by sharp black mountains. The ice caps were small, and the barren land marched right up to their limits. But still…

  “Holy shit!” Dora shouted as she rose into position to see the planet. Although her face was invisible beyond her helmet’s active screening, Riordan had the impression that she was staring back defiantly. “Tell me you didn’t think the same thing!”

  “I thought it,” Bannor agreed as he and Duncan floated closer. “I just didn’t pierce everybody’s eardrums with it.”

  “Okay, okay, but…” She began to mutter something under her breath. Was it…a prayer?

  Duncan, in contrast was chuckling. “Y’know,” he said, “I’m actually feeling the tiniest bit better about our chances of survival, now.”

  Bannor sounded like he was smiling. “You’re just a crazy optimist, Solsohn.”

  “No, Rulaine, we’re just crazy lucky.”

  “No,” interrupted Caine quietly as he realized the significance of what they were seeing. “We’re not.”

  “Uh…what?” asked Duncan.

  “It’s too much good luck. First, we don’t emerge in deep space, but near a star. Then we find out we’re near a planet. And it turns out to be a planet with water. Which, along with those clouds, means probably enough of an atmosphere, and maybe enough oxygen, that we’ve got an outside chance of being able to breathe it, filtered or otherwise.” He turned to face the others, even though they couldn’t see each other. “This isn’t luck.”

  Duncan was the first to break the silence. “Er…you never struck me as the religious type. Commodore.”

  “I’m not. That’s not what’s at work here.”

  Dora sounded a little spooked. “Then what is?”

  Riordan sighed. “I’m not sure. But here’s what I do know: our part of the galaxy was populated by unthinkably advanced beings up until twenty millennia ago. Who knows what they left behind? Who knows what kind of—I don’t know, rescue system—might have been designed for ships that mis-shift?” He looked back at the planet. “What are the odds that we would just happen to pop out of shift here, out of all the cubic light-years of nothingness that surround every tiny star? No, this isn’t chance.”

  He motioned toward Dora. She drifted forward. “You may have the best eyes of any human being I’ve ever met, Ms. Veriden. Tell me what you see down there. Take your time. What you spot, or miss, could determine all our fates.”

  “Coño, no pressure, hey?” But she went silent, her head forward slightly.

  As she stared at the world, Bannor turned slowly in every direction. “Granted that we could be turned upside down and around, but…” His voice trailed off.

  “Yes?” Riordan urged.

  “Caine, this starfield doesn’t have a single feature I recognize. None of the deformed constellations that you can still make out, even if you’re fifty or a hundred light-years away from Earth. None of the close pairs of big stars that should be visible from almost anywhere in our cluster.”

  Duncan exhaled slowly. “I was wondering that, too. Not that my familiarity with starfields is as good as the colonel’s, but…damn, nothing here looks familiar.”

  Riordan nodded, discovered he wasn’t surprised. “See anything interesting, Ms. Veriden?”

  “Yes. Look there, that archipelago a little bit below the equator. Look at the biggest island.”

  Riordan saw it at the same moment that Bannor said, “It’s…it’s got some green on it. I think.”

  “Yeah, that’s green alright. I’ve also been checking near the banks of all the rivers I can see. I can’t tell for sure—maybe it’s just wishful thinking—but I t
hink I see little specks of green along them, too. Some are surrounded by a darker ring, I think.”

  “A scrub margin?” Duncan wondered aloud.

  Riordan nodded. “That’s as good a guess as any. Of course, it could all be a misread, at this range. Maybe we’re seeing a big tidal pool that makes water look green from orbit. Or maybe the color comes from crystalline clusters, bouncing the light in just the right way to charm our hopeful eyes.”

  “Sounds like we need a closer look,” Bannor murmured.

  Caine couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds like someone’s eager to burn that little bit of fuel we found.”

  “You got someplace else to go…Commodore?”

  Riordan surprised himself by laughing. “Not just this minute.” He stared at the cold, unfamiliar stars again. “We may not know where we are, but we know we can’t stay out here for long.”

  Solsohn’s voice was hushed. “Then I guess we’re going down there.”

  “I guess so, Duncan,” Riordan answered. He turned his back on the planet, headed toward the airlock and the hard, hasty work ahead. “I guess we are going there,” he repeated, attempting to drown out the deafening qualifier in his mind:

  Assuming we get down in one piece.

  Appendix A

  Dramatis Personae

  HUMANS AND ALLIES

  Angus Smith: technical specialist (covert) for ODINS

  Ayana Tagawa: Former XO of SS Arbitrage; former Japanese Intelligence

  Bannor Rulaine: Colonel, crew of UCS Puller, former US Special Forces/IRIS

  Caine Riordan: Commodore, USSF (ret.), former IRIS

  Connor Corcoran: son of Caine Riordan and Elena Corcoran

  David Weber: Director of ODINS; Captain USSF (Reserve)

  Dora Veriden: crew of UCS Puller

  Duncan Solsohn: Major, crew of UCS Puller, former CIA/IRIS

  Elena Corcoran: anthropologist, diplomat

  Enis Turan: Compliance Officer, Procedural Compliance Directorate, IRIS