Gallego inhaled sharply. Her head felt like it might fall off her shoulders. It was disturbing until she remembered that they were in zero gravity and the sensation was natural. The headache, however, was neither pleasant nor welcome. She also noticed that one corner of her mouth was wet, and her face was covered in sweat.
The diagnosis was clear.
“I must have nodded off. I had another dream. Clio was really trying to get my attention. She kept talking about there being something we haven’t dealt with yet.”
“Did she say what?”
Gallego searched her memory. It was rather pointless, really. Rarely had Constance been forthcoming or direct during any of their dream-state conversations. When she did provide hints or clues, it was never clear what they meant. Not until the moment when it mattered most arrived.
“I got nothing,” Gallego said. “I probably won’t know what she was talking about until we find it, whatever it is.”
Cheboi nodded sympathetically. At this point, she too understood that Clio worked only in the most ambiguous of ways. Glancing to her right, she began watching Houte out of the corner of her eye. Gallego picked up on her trail of thought and looked to her restraints.
Depressing a small panel at the center of the webbing made the restraints pop off and return into the couch. Gallego pushed herself up and began moving towards Houte’s seat, using the handholds that were placed throughout the cabin to remain anchored. When she reached Houte’s station, she eyed his displays. Placing one hand on his shoulder, she gave Houte a serious look.
“What? What is it?”
“Something’s wrong,” she whispered. Her voice, like her mind, wasn’t fully awake yet. “Your sister... she just reached out to me again. She said something was going to happen.”
Houte frowned. “What?”
Gallego couldn’t answer that question intelligently. “Actually, I was hoping you could help me make sense of it. Did you ever know your sister to use Biblical allegories to explain things?”
“Biblical?” said Houte, as if the word were alien to him.
“She said something about throwing rocks. It put me in mind of the David and Goliath myth.”
“The... David and who?”
The expression on Houte’s face told her he was even less clear on what she was talking about than before. Gallego’s face suddenly felt hot. It may have been the frustration, or the leftover adrenalin caused by the bad induced dream. All she knew was, she was getting sick of being jerked around by strangers.
She’s your fucking sister! she wanted to say. Why is she still bothering me with her fucking oracular bullshit?
Of course, she didn’t. Sighing, she simply looked past him at the display he had been monitoring. This one, which was level with Houte’s face while he remained seated, held a two-dimensional map of the Jovian system. Their ship was indicated by a teal-colored diamond, their flight path indicated by a long white filament. The focal point of the map was too narrow to show where this path ended.
“Where are we headed?”
“Callisto,” Houte replied. “Before we can get out of the system, we need to meet with my sister and Pinter once more. It may be some time before we see them again, and there’s more they need to tell you.”
Gallego exhaled heavily. “Of course, there’s more to say. More explanations, more dire warnings. That’s what I got when I signed up for this, isn’t it? Fucking Xenia.”
Gallego grabbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and pinched gently. When she looked at Houte again, she noted the same look of confusion. But now, he was at least smiling a little.
Houte’s reply was interrupted by the sound of an alarm bleeping suddenly and loudly. From behind them, Cheboi pushed next to Gallego and stared at the display map.
“What is that?” Cheboi demanded.
Houte turned back and hit a series of keys on his terminal. The map widened to reveal the source of the distress, a small red dot that moving towards them. Another white filament connected to it, indicating its current trajectory. Between the red dot and their own ship, the filaments were due to intersect in just a few minutes.
“What-is-that?!” repeated Cheboi, this time with greater force.
“That would be the other mercs,” Houte said heavily. “And unless I’m mistaken, I’d say that they really want to kill us right now.”
FORTY-FOUR
THE ALARM on Houte's display blared more rapidly now. Its tone also sounded louder and more insistent, though Gallego was certain that was just her imagination. One thing she wasn’t imagining was the information rapidly appearing around the red dot..
It all told a very confusing story.
“Configuration is unknown, and sensor can’t make heads or tails of it,” said Houte. “Still, I think it’s fair to say that the mercenaries ship.”
“It’s a stealth vessel, that much is clear,” Cheboi added. “Can we assume they’re getting limited reading on us too?”
“They’re getting enough. They’re on an intercept course. The fact that we’re the only other stealth ship in the area is kind of a giveaway.” Houte tapped at a few of the commands on his terminal and grunted unhappily. “From what the sensors can pick up, it looks like they’re powering up their weapons.”
Gallego looked at Cheboi, hoping for some for reassurance. After their last encounter, and the narrow escape they had made from Selket, she had hoped the worst of it was behind them. Knowing they could still die in space was somehow less appealing than the thought of dying in a firefight.
Cheboi called to Amaru at her station. “What kind of weapons do we have?”
“I don’t know,” came the reply. “No one’s crewing the tactical station.”
Amaru nodded to a chair that sat a few paces from Houte’s location. There too, the displays were going haywire, issuing alerts and reports that were less than helpful. Cheboi moved to this station as quickly as she could and strapped herself in. Hurriedly acquainting herself with the controls, she began pulling up information on the ship’s armaments. The results left her less than pleased.
“Most of the gun mounts have been removed. We’ve got no DEWs, no relativistic weapons, and no point defense turrets. The only thing we’re carrying is a small cache of torpedoes.” Once again, an alarm sounded. Both Houte and Cheboi’s displays alerted them to some new threat. It didn’t take long for Cheboi to determine what it was. “They just launched a flurry of missiles! Intercept in two minutes!”
Gallego looked desperately at Houte and Amaru. If they knew how to get out of this situation, if Constance had said something to prepare them, they weren’t showing it. In fact, they looked like how Gallego felt: frightened and on the verge of panic.
A fresh report from Cheboi made them all feel slightly better. “We do have countermeasures. I’m prepping them for release the moment those missiles are in our space.”
“Good!” shouted Amaru. “I’m programming in an evasive pattern. This should put more room between us and those missiles when the counter-measures deploy.”
Gallego didn’t need to be told. Moving quickly back to the couch, she sat down and let it strap her back in. With all the alarms blaring, the restraints became particularly snug. She took several deep breaths and waited. The intervening seconds passed very slowly and were over far too quickly. The ascending wail of the alarms eventually became a steady hum.
“Hold tight!” yelled Amaru.
Everyone shifted in their seats as the engines fired and the ship pulled a sharp turn. The preprogrammed maneuver generated several times normal gravity. Gallego’s bio machinery responded by trying to regulate her heart rate and circulation amid the crushing pressure. The next force came from behind as the missiles detonated, generating a shock wave that knocked them forward. The cabin rattled, but the disturbance soon passed.
Houte was the first to acknowledge they were still alive. “We’re okay. I think the detonation might have confused their sensors too. They haven’t reacqu
ired us yet.”
Everyone in the ship had just enough time to catch their breath before the displays started chirping again. These indicators didn’t sound so urgent. For some reason, Gallego was reminded of a noise she’d once heard an automated landing system make.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
Amaru was the one who answered. “This is strange. I’m getting some kind of feed here.” She paused. The chirping changed tone as their ship began to roll sideways. All eyes turned to Amaru’s station.
“I’m not doing this,” she said, holding up her hands to prove it. “We’re changing course. I have no idea where we’re headed.”
“I do,” Houte said. “Our long-range scanners are picking up asteroids and our heading puts us on a direct course towards the Sun.” He hesitated before sharing the inevitable conclusion. “We’re going for the Belt.”
No one said anything for a few seconds. Eventually, everyone but Gallego looked at Houte and waited expectantly. No one needed to voice what they were thinking. Like every other manifestation of convenience, the source of this latest development was clear. It only made sense that people would look to him for an explanation now. She was, after all, his sister.
When he noticed this, Houte just shook his head. “Don’t ask. I gave up trying to understand her mind a long time ago.”
In her mind, Gallego felt the last pieces of the puzzle fall into place.
She laughed aloud, which caught the attention of everyone on the ship. “Yeah, me too,” she said. “Luckily, I think she’s figured out how mine works.”
FORTY-FIVE
THE NEXT FEW HOURS were an exercise in repetition. Many times over, the enemy ship reacquired them and opened fire with another volley. Every time, Amaru and Cheboi were forced to pull another hard maneuver that consisted of deploying counter-measures and firing the thrusters. It didn’t take long for them to realize that the enemy crew had a strategy, one that played to their opponents’ limitations.
“They know we have limited armaments,” Cheboi said. “They’re running down our fuel and our countermeasures.”
“How much more do we have?” Gallego asked.
Cheboi did a quick consult on their ships stores. “We’ve nearly exhausted the countermeasures. The on-board fabricators have enough material to manufacture twelve more spreads. But their ship looks like it’s fully stocked. Even if they run their supply of missiles down and can’t make new ones, they’ve got to have a few more armaments up their sleeves.”
“How far are we from the Belt?”
“Another hour,” Amaru reported. “It’s not going to be easy finding a place to hide there. Assuming we pass close enough to an M-type asteroid, we might just be able to confuse their sensors some more.”
Gallego nodded and did some field math in her head. The Belt could provide an opportunity to replenish their stores, provided they had time to set down and do a little ore and ice mining. Assuming they were able to keep hopping from rock to rock, keeping away from their pursuers, they might be able to survive indefinitely. As long as the enemy ship didn’t get close enough to fire a beam weapon or a relativistic gun at them, they would be fine.
But no one wanted to commit to an indefinite chase. It wasn’t like they could flee to a safe port either. Until now, the operators of their vessel had been able to move about freely by remaining unidentified. It wasn’t as if they could simply fly into Ceres, Vesta, or exit the Belt entirely and try to make it to Mars. Their only option was to remain in the Belt indefinitely or find a way to take the enemy ship out.
Clio had been clear that they weren’t going to survive by taking a conventional approach. When one was outgunned and outclassed, there was nothing more conventional than attempting to run and hide. There really was only option, the one that Clio had alluded to.
Throw rocks.
Moving to Cheboi’s station, Gallego eyed the lower left corner of her display cluster. It was here that the ship’s stores, and their current compliment of material, were indicated. Based on their current rate of progress, they would need at least half of what they had for more countermeasures. The other half, if reallocated for what she had planned, might just be sufficient.
In the meantime, Amaru had the ship’s existing compliment of deployable thrusters prepped and ready. The crew had already been briefed on it and seemed to think it was doable. Gallego let them think that this was Clio’s plan, that she was merely the intermediary. A white lie, perhaps, but close enough for their purposes.
Houte notified them the moment an M-type asteroid was in range. He barked the proper heading to Amaru. “It looks sizable,” he said. “There’s plenty of smaller rocks and debris surrounding it. We might even be able to lose them for a few minutes.”
“That’s all we need,” Gallego said.
THROUGH THE FRONT PORTHOLE, the asteroid looked like a giant tuber. It consisted of two main lobes, connected by an hourglass-like midsection. The far side, which was picking up light from the distant Sun, looked reddish and craggy. At the lower end, a large chunk looked like it had broken free. Several fragments drifted from this spot and a long and tenuous cloud extended several kilometers in all directions.
When they came within range of the giant rock, Amaru ordered everyone back to their seats. Only Gallego needed to comply. Rather than going back to the couch, she took the only other station on the bridge, which was clearly intended for away missions. A series of names appeared on a central readout, the bio readings indicating that they were all dead or out of range.
Gallego ignored this, as the status of the ship’s old crew was no longer of any concern to them. Right now, the seat was nothing more than a series of deployable restraints that ensured her body wasn’t turned into a pulp when they pulled their next evasive maneuver.
Before Amaru could execute it, they got a notification that another flurry of missiles was pursuing them. Cheboi quickly approved the release of another volley of counter-measures, adding a slight delay to ensure it wouldn’t happen until the last possible second.
The alarm once again grew louder and more insistent with every passing second. By the time the missiles were within striking distance, they hit a crescendo. Tightening her hands on the controls, Amaru counted down and shouted just loud enough to be hear over the alarms.
“Now!” Everyone lurched in their seats as the ship accelerated, pitched, rolled, then dove. These maneuvers placed them above the asteroid, and then on the other side, flying down the length of its face. Reversing their thrust, Amaru sent everyone forward into their restraints. As if this wasn’t enough, she also brought the ship around by ninety degrees.
Out the front porthole, nothing was visible beyond a dense dust cloud.
Several sharp thuds rang through the bridge as their ship ploughed into it, small rocks and bits of debris knocking against the hull. Amaru’s knuckles were white with tension as she steered them into the thickest concentration of debris, taking care to remain as close to the asteroid’s surface as possible. A few serious hits rocked the ship as she brought it to a stop. Luckily, none of these were powerful enough to do anything other than terrify the crew. No breaches and no sudden decompression.
Once they touched down on the asteroid’s surface, Amaru let out a loud gasp. Pulling her hands away from the controls, she also wiped a generous film of sweat away from her face. “Okay! We’re here. And we’re alive.”
Gallego also needed a second to compose herself. Unstrapping herself quickly, she began issuing instructions to everyone else.
“Amaru, ready those deployable thrusters. Cheboi, get those torpedoes ready. Houte, you’re with me, we need to see if this thing has any pressure suits. Cheboi and I can survive out there with our exos, but this is likely to be a three-person job.”
Houte released himself and stood. He couldn’t stop from asking the all-important question as he followed her. “You’re sure about this? You’re sure this is what Constance was telling you?”
Gallego felt a little on the spot. Was he calling her on her lie, or simply seeking reassurance? She chose to go with the latter option, and pointed out the irony of his question.
She pointed to both him and Amaru. “What have you two been telling us this whole time?”
Houte nodded. “Right. Just seems risky is all.”
Gallego couldn’t help but laugh. The shoe was firmly on the other foot and the learning curve was steep. She sincerely hoped they made it through the next few hours. She wanted to remind Houte of this conversation and let him know how many times she and Cheboi had been forced to suppress their nagging doubts. There simply was no time.
“Shut up and help me find you a suit. We need to do a little surgery.”
FORTY-SIX
“THAT’S THE LAST OF them,” said Amaru. She looked over her shoulder at Cheboi, who nodded back. Houte was next, confirming that he was ready with a mock salute. Gallego, meanwhile, stood behind Houte’s chair and watched his display map. With their plan ready for execution, her job was effectively finished. All she could do now was wait and watch and hope like hell it worked.
Much of the map was filled with the bulbous image of their asteroid. At the upper left corner, the red icon that indicated the enemy ship winked in and out of existence. While the asteroids metallic content and dust cloud effectively concealed them from the other ship’s sensors, the effect wasn’t one-way. They were also forced to monitor their enemy though a haze of dust, trace gases and obscuring particles. Their reception was just moderately better because the other vessel was keeping its distance from the rocky surface.
Gallego and Houte watched as the icon performed its elliptical dance around the asteroid. It moved in one direction, then reversed course to go back the way it came. Every so often, it came about to direct its scanners outward. The dance it performed was quite beautiful and a testament to the ship’s sophistication. Knowing this only made Gallego more nervous.
The Jovian Manifesto (The Formist Series Book 2) Page 28