“He’s slogging it now,” Magnus said.
“Right, anything to get it over with,” Telisa agreed. The simulation ended.
Telisa wasted no time. She went into the room where everyone had linked in and walked up to Marcant. She offered Magnus a feed of her hearing and vision. He took it and brought it up in a pane in his PV.
This should be interesting, Magnus thought.
“Marcant, with me,” Telisa said. She said it mildly, sending the signal to everyone that he was not being punished.
Marcant nodded and followed Telisa into an empty stateroom.
“I can tell you have a good grasp of strategy and tactics,” Telisa said, as the door closed. Magnus saw her vision turn to regard Marcant.
“Well it’s actually my friend, Achaius. Anyway, if you can see that, then why did everyone back blockhead back there?”
“Imanol? He’s not a blockhead. He just doesn’t accept newcomers quickly. You need their respect first,” Telisa said. “What good is your superior insight and ability if no one listens to you?”
“Well, they should be smart enough to listen to good advice,” Marcant said carefully.
“I can tell you’re going to be our tactician someday,” Telisa said.
“Really? I mean, I know I can do it, but I’m surprised you see that.”
“Here’s what you do. Be humble. Accept their crap for a while, build up your respect bank with them. Show them what you can do for a while. They’ll come to accept you. When you’re at that spot, I’ll put you in charge for several training scenarios. Then, when they see how much ass you kick, they’ll realize you were right all along. Then, Magnus and I will put you in charge of more and more. Sound reasonable?”
Magnus and I. Did she say that because I’m listening?
“Eminently,” Marcant said, straightening in his seat.
“Imanol may bait you. Ignore it for now, until you see the lay of the land... meaning the way they relate to each other.”
Marcant nodded.
“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” Telisa said.
Cilreth walked into Magnus’s room before Telisa came back. Magnus turned to meet her. Imanol was on her heels.
“Can you believe this guy?” asked Imanol. “Did you see all that?”
Magnus shrugged. He let his reply drag until Telisa came back and told the door to close behind her.
“He’s trouble,” Imanol persisted.
“We’re going to keep an eye on him,” Telisa said.
“So you agree?”
Cilreth looked pensive. “He’s good. We know that. The question is one of loyalty. Shiny pointed out to me that he tried to hack into some Vovokan systems.”
“He’s Shiny’s enemy?”
“Well, Shiny thought he should be on the team, actually,” Cilreth admitted.
“This guy comes from Shiny?!” Imanol burst out.
“Back it down a notch,” Magnus said. “I seem to recall you as being the abrasive one.”
Cilreth laughed. “That’s right, Imanol. You’ve rubbed a fair number of people the wrong way, too.”
“I’m no traitor.”
“Neither is he. He was hacking Shiny,” Magnus said. “He was fighting the alien overlord that took over the Solar System. So he’s loyal. We’re the traitors. We work for Shiny.”
“You know it’s not that simple,” Imanol said, but he had calmed down.
“Like she said, we’ll watch him,” Telisa said. “He’s got what it takes to tackle alien systems and figure them out. How many times have we stared at something and we can’t tell if it’s an eating utensil or a death ray?”
Imanol looked to Magnus pleadingly. Magnus smiled.
“At least he’s not a Trilisk,” Magnus said. “Uhm, we did check to make sure he’s not a Trilisk, right?”
“Right,” Cilreth said.
“See? He’s fine,” Magnus said. Imanol rolled his eyes.
Magnus smiled. He enjoyed trivializing Imanol’s concerns more than he thought he would. It felt good to be back.
Chapter 27
Caden woke up so he could be ready for their arrival back at Rorka Cartur. Siobhan had shared his quarters last night, but as always, she fled to her own web to sleep. Caden had never figured out why, but he had learned to stop asking about it.
Maybe she sleeps upside down like a bat.
Within a few minutes of his rise, Siobhan showed up. She looked disheveled and tired. A yawn accented her condition. They showered in his tube and waited for news of the arrival.
“I’m awake now,” she said.
“Ready for the probe ship again? I hope Shiny doesn’t damage it, or piss of the Celarans.”
“Exactly. How will he take it back?”
“Maybe he’ll just raid it?” Caden said.
“He’s more advanced. Maybe he can figure out their secrets faster than we could.”
“The only other guess I have is that he might connect to the probe ship with his battleship and use its spinner to take both ships back to Earth immediately.”
“We’ll know soon.”
He went off-retina to watch their arrival. They had started calling the massive Vovokan warship the Rattler, another joke based on the way Shiny communicated in his native format. Most of the PIT team felt that Shiny was not personally on board, but Telisa did not rule out the possibility of a Shiny clone commanding the ship.
The Iridar arrived first. A second later, the Midway resolved a few thousand kilometers away. Caden started looking for a viewpane with information from the sensor feeds.
“I don’t have a feed,” Siobhan said.
“Cthulhu sleeps!” exclaimed Cilreth.
“Something unexpected?” asked Siobhan.
“Yes. But there’s no danger. The probe ship has left the system!”
“Are you sure?” Imanol asked. “It was cloaked well, right?”
“The attendants left behind watched it leave... after another cloaked ship arrived in the system!” Cilreth told them.
Caden thought of an immediate repercussion of the probe departure.
Telisa traded that thing for Magnus. And now it’s gone. What’s going to happen?
The Rattler arrived on their heels.
“Can we determine where it went?” Telisa demanded. Clearly she was way ahead of him. They needed to find that ship.
“I don’t think so... wait a moment,” Cilreth responded. “The attendants recorded a lot of information about the departures. Shiny’s ship is sending me their course.”
“I guess Vovokans can do that,” Caden said. “Good to know.”
“Yes, but how?” Siobhan asked.
“The remaining attendants have a message from an attendant that hitched a ride,” Marcant said.
“Uhm, that makes no sense,” Imanol said. “It has to be light years away.”
“The attendants can send, but not receive, tachyonic messages, though to do so, they must sacrifice themselves,” Marcant said.
“How could you possibly know that?” Imanol shot back. His voice sounded hostile.
“It came up in my research,” Marcant said. “Cilreth is guiding my education about the Vovokans as you may recall.”
Caden spoke to Siobhan aloud in his quarters. “Did you notice that? Does Marcant already know things Cilreth doesn’t? He gave her credit for teaching him, but it sounded like maybe she didn’t know how they did it.”
“Maybe,” Siobhan breathed. “It’s good to have him though, unless Imanol is right not to trust him.”
“Here’s the new target,” Marcant said. He shared a map to the system believed to be the destination of the probe ship.
“Shiny’s ship is informing us of its intention to leave within the next few minutes,” Cilreth said.
“Is that system on our list of Vovokan-discovered Celaran ruins?” asked Caden.
“No,” Cilreth said.
“Just get ready for anything,” Telisa said.
***
“I say left side,” Adair said. “The yellow ones disintegrate quickly. The red reeds get twisted around your legs and you’ll have to stop to cut them again.”
Marcant send a nonverbal acknowledgement and veered left.
Marcant had decided to train with Adair for now, since a defensive advisor seemed better suited to a newbie on the team. If he got better—much better—maybe he would let Achaius chime in. For now, he focused on following Adair’s instructions.
“Stay low here,” Adair said. “There’s no reason to present a larger target than you have to.”
“But I can barely move, and there’s no enemy—”
The world exploded in smelly yellow water and broken reeds.
Marcant choked. For the next few seconds he struggled to orient himself. His Veer suit’s helmet snapped shut and evacuated the slimy water as he coughed it up. Adair was speaking to him.
“Get behind that huge plant. Marcant, get behind that plant, you’re being shot at.”
“Caden, can you cover my left?” Siobhan said.
Marcant had dropped very low, leaving only the part of his helmet above his eyes protruding from the water. He looked left and right, then saw the tree. He took some steps toward it.
“Headed for the tree-thing. But why? I’m under cover now, isn’t that what you wanted?” he said to Adair.
“Jason’s been winged,” Imanol said. “He can’t move, but we can hold them off for a while. I still have three grenades.”
“Look at the tactical,” Adair said. “The enemy is to your 2 o’clock. The tree will cover you well and you can fire back from there. Not from underwater.”
Marcant kept going. He saw on the tactical that Siobhan and Caden were at the focal point of a pincer movement by the enemy. All he really knew about those shooting at them was that they resembled “two-headed crocodiles”.
He slogged to the wide, fat plant, which looked like a squashed willow tree with green anacondas for branches. He ran right into the branches, stopping with a wet slap, then dropped his rifle across one. He settled in nice and low, letting the tree conceal him. His barrel protruded through most of the tree.
“Okay, fire from here,” Adair said.
Marcant started to shoot. He had a target profile which he fed to the rounds, though his rifle could not see the enemy. One of the creatures dropped off the tactical.
“I think I got one,” he told Adair.
Siobhan went off the tactical, followed quickly by Jason. Imanol had joined Caden near the path of the left pincer force. Marcant fired several more times.
“They’ve moved on. We’ll have to move forward to stay in range,” Adair said. Marcant pulled his weapon out of the awful tree and started walking around it.
“We’re taking heavy fire,” said Imanol. Marcant slogged through another ten meters of swampy land. Then Imanol and Caden went offline. The simulation stopped. Marcant went on-retina in the lounge the team had been using to train near each other.
Imanol looked at Marcant.
Here we go.
“Why did you hold position once the attack started?” Imanol asked.
“The terrain was difficult. The tree was the best position anyway. Defensively, I mean,” Marcant said.
“You left Siobhan out to dry.”
“She was with Caden. I could fire from the tree at the enemy’s right pincer force as they moved in on Siobhan and Caden.”
Imanol scowled at Marcant.
“The entire team works as a unit,” he said. “Just because Caden and Siobhan explore or patrol together does not mean they’re on their own when something goes down. If any team member is in trouble, you stick your neck out to help them. Got it?”
“Yes,” Marcant said. “Though before I died too easily, so I backed it off a bit.”
Siobhan nodded. “I understand. Here’s the deal. Be defensive initially, that’s good. But if things get really bad despite that, it’s time to take risks, because doing nothing kills us just as dead.”
“It’s time for dinner,” Caden said. He did not sound angry. Marcant had learned to appreciate the little things.
Marcant rose with the others and headed for his quarters. He did not feel like hitting the mess at the same time as Imanol.
“Imanol looks for reasons to complain,” Adair said. “It may just be a standard method to toughen you up.”
“On the other hand, he has Magnus’s ear,” Achaius said.
“I’m sure he’s complaining about me,” Marcant said.
“He is,” Achaius said. “Adair and I can still pick up their conversation from here.”
Marcant stopped. His AIs piped the conversation in to him.
“He works for Shiny,” Imanol was saying. “Shiny suggested him. The part about Marcant trying to hack Shiny was made up. This is all Shiny’s doing. And those two AIs of his? Spheres. Who do we know that uses tiny spheres, medium spheres, and big battle spheres?”
Magnus frowned. “Not that suspicious. I’ve seen AIs housed in all kinds of chassis.”
“You can bench him now. Use these exercises as an excuse. That way, no one dies for real.”
“Think about it Imanol,” Telisa said. “If it was a setup, he would show himself to be trustworthy in training, and betray us later. He stays on the team. When it’s time to deploy incarnate, I’ll give him something basic. We don’t have to take him on dangerous patrols, his strength is in analysis.”
Telisa is standing up for me.
Marcant sighed. “Damn. Now I have to repay her with loyalty.”
Chapter 28
Marcant sat in his quarters, patiently awaiting their arrival at the next system. He mulled over his argument with Imanol. He knew he had been right and Imanol had been wrong, but had it been a mistake to stir up the team against him? Cilreth had told him that Imanol had annoyed everyone at one time or another, yet they seemed to stand up for Imanol now.
“The team has been together for a while,” Adair said. “You have to wait for them to see your superiority themselves, you can’t inform them of it.”
“Then, half will respect you and half will hate you for it,” Achaius said.
“I think you’d be right in most cases, Achaius,” Marcant said. “But these people are intelligent and well adjusted. Telisa has chosen them well. Or perhaps it was Ambassador Shiny who chose them.”
Before any reply could come, the Iridar broadcast an alert to its crew.
“Arrival at target system imminent,” it said. A countdown timer feed appeared as the gravity spinner started to slow down. Marcant saw it would pass threshold energy in one hundred ship’s seconds, dropping them into the system.
There was no need to go anywhere incarnate. Every feed and service was available to Marcant here in his quarters. Still, he donned his brand new Veer suit as a precaution.
“The others will either be happy with this or make fun of me when they see me in this outside of a training scenario,” he said to Adair and Achaius.
“You’re beyond the frontier now, this is appropriate garb,” Adair encouraged. Marcant smiled. Adair, ever the cautious and defensive one, wanted him to sleep behind force fields and eat pre-scanned food every day. Of course it liked him in an armored suit.
Marcant put away the PV setup he had been using to study the Celaran artifacts and loaded a ship’s interface set. The panes in his mind cleared away to make room for new ones. He saw all the non-private sections of the ship, an engineering summary including the state of the spinner, and the external sensor feeds. So far the external feeds were empty, and they would remain so until the spinner crossed the threshold in... ten seconds.
“We’re here, people,” Cilreth reported to the shared team channel.
Marcant saw the
system tactical explode with information.
“Multiple ships! In fact—” Cilreth said.
“This is a combat situation!” Adair told Marcant.
“I can’t make sense of it,” Cilreth said.
“It’s a fight,” Magnus said. “And the Rattler has already joined in!”
Marcant watched objects accelerate away from the huge Vovokan warship. An electromagnetic readout also showed evidence that the ship fired energy weapons.
“Why would— Oh. Destroyers,” Siobhan said.
Marcant saw the tactical resolve into different colors for ships as they were classified. The Iridar had already identified a group of Destroyer ships and innumerable Destroyer-related drones and ordinance in flight on defensive and offensive vectors. They appeared in red on his shared three-dimensional map, over a light minute away. Their own fleet, a paltry three ships, were displayed in green, vastly outnumbered in the system.
“There’s the probe ship,” Telisa said, marking an object on the tactical. “The other blue ships are the same; they must be Celaran.”
The Rattler lit up as its shields dispersed energy. It was firing, but Marcant also saw reports of distress. Directed energy weapons were locked onto it.
“What are we doing?” Cilreth asked.
“Helping the Celarans, of course,” Telisa said. “I’ve just told the Midway the same.”
Marcant saw the Midway on the tactical. The Rattler, the Midway, and the Iridar had peeled away from each other and started to engage the Destroyers, though they were still very far away. Already a cloud of Destroyer ordinance could be seen leaving the enemy ships, headed for the newcomers.
“I can do better,” Achaius told Marcant. “Much better.”
Marcant opened a channel to Telisa and Cilreth.
“Cilreth, I beg you. Let me take control of the Iridar.”
“What?”
“I can do better. I promise you, my fleet combat strategy is superior to my personal combat skills.”
At first, Cilreth did not respond. Then she said, “I’m using the Vovokan routines. Obviously I’m not pulling every trigger myself.”
“Yes, tactically the Vovokan routines are likely acceptable, but the strategy,” Marcant said. “I can process everything we see out there, every single object, and come up with a course of action to optimize our impact in the battle.”
The Celaran Probe (Parker Interstellar Travels Book 7) Page 18