“You could be right. Oscar, I’d like to try something. If we put a comrelay at the other end of this link, then we might be able to pick it up if there’s another cross link below us.”
“Go ahead, Dudley, it’s worth a try.”
Dudley zipped through the short length of tunnel, happy at how easy he was at moving himself about in these conditions. The skill training memory was finally settling in—along with his natural aptitude, of course. He stuck the comrelay inside the second spiral, and hurried back.
Wilson stared at the small triangles inching their way across the big portal’s tactical display. Digits flickered around each one, delivering yet more bad news. The lead ship was eighty-two million kilometers distant, and accelerating hard at eight gees. It was going to reach them in just over three hours. That was bad enough, but what he really didn’t like was that it hadn’t flipped over to decelerate.
All eight ships had launched from the moons or inhabited asteroids of the outermost gas giant, three AUs distant, the closest center of any alien activity. If that lead ship didn’t decelerate at all, it was going to have a relative velocity of over seven and a half thousand kilometers per second when it reached them. No human machine had ever reached a fraction of that speed in real space. Even now, he could see it on the visual display as the Second Chance’s main telescope tracked it. The fusion drive was a streamer of near-invisible violet fury stretching for hundreds of kilometers behind a scintillating golden sphere. Every stray gas molecule and charged particle impacting on the force field was dying in a burst of radioactive splendor, contributing to the coronal hue around the ship. If it hit the Second Chance or the Watchtower at that velocity, the explosion would briefly rival a solar flare.
“Only ships five and seven have flipped,” Anna said. “They’re decelerating to rendezvous. Falling a long way behind the others. And three more have left the gas giant on an interception course for us. I think we’ve also got about fifteen on their way from Dyson Major; it’s a little early to be sure but their vectors are matching up.”
Wilson nodded silently as he absorbed the tactical situation. Given their vectors and positions, all eight ships in the first flotilla must have launched from various bases over a period of several hours. They were well spread out. There was no doubt about their destination, even if it was only a flyby. As for their intent …
“Thank you,” he said. “Oscar, pull the contact teams out of the Watchtower right now. I want them back on board Second Chance in half an hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tunde, I’m trying to think of any possible peaceful or scientific value from a flyby at the kind of speed the lead ship will have.”
“There isn’t any, sir, there can’t be.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. This is territorial. They might even think we’re from the species which put up the barrier, in which case we have to assume the worst. If they do not slow down, we will withdraw from this system. I’m not going to risk our lives and this mission in an attempt to make contact under a combat situation. Hyperspace, I want an immediate flight path for our return to the Commonwealth, ready to initiate on my command.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Anna, we’re going to attempt data contact with the first flotilla. If we can’t understand them, maybe we can get them to understand us. Start transmitting our standard preliminary contact package. Use every frequency they’re squirting at us. If nothing else we have to tell them we’re not the ones who put up the barrier.”
“Captain,” Oscar called.
Wilson missed having Oscar on the bridge, although he grudgingly acknowledged the executive officer was by far the best person to be running the exploration of the Watchtower. But he knew immediately from Oscar’s tone something had gone wrong. “Yes?”
“We’ve got problems. Two members of contact team A have dropped out of communication.”
“This one is at a different angle again,” Emmanuelle said.
They had both stopped beside the fifth cross link, shining their suit lights into it. Once again, it was a straight tunnel opening to a spiral shaft. They suspected there were more than two spirals, possibly four or five.
“I think we should stick to this shaft,” Dudley said. “Let’s find out where it goes before we start plotting the rest.” According to his inertial guidance display, they were already a hundred fifteen meters below level seven of the alien station. They hadn’t managed to get a signal from any of the additional comrelays he’d placed at the cross links above, so they didn’t really know for sure what the topography was. “Oscar, can we carry on?”
“Yeah, keep going. It’s the most interesting aspect of the station we’ve come across.”
Dudley pushed off again. There were enough bumps and irregularities in the aluminum sheath for him to grip and use like a ladder, pulling himself along. He was keen to see where it led now. He had a gut feeling that this was important. It was different from the rest of the station. The aliens must have used it to feed something in, or out. This had a purpose. Once they knew what it was connected to, they would have the first key, a way in to decrypting the alien culture. And I found it.
He moved forward eagerly, his suit lights sliding over the ancient corrupted metal. Seeking understanding.
“I can’t get them back,” Oscar said. “The comrelays must have glitched. We’re not even getting a carrier wave from either of them.”
“Goddamnit!” Wilson started calling up the contact team status displays onto his console screens. “When did you lose contact?”
“Just as you told us to get them back. I don’t believe this. Those comrelay units can’t fail; they’re nothing but safety circuits.”
A 3D chart of the Watchtower station sprang up, with other team members’ positions illustrated by small green lights. All of them were converging on the beacon.
“Who’s missing?” Wilson asked.
“Verbeke and Bose.”
For one instant, Wilson felt a flash of anger. It just had to be him, didn’t it. Anger was equally quickly replaced by guilt. He’s one of my crew, and he’s suffered equipment failure. “Don’t they have to make their way back if they lose contact?”
“That’s what the manual says. Emmanuelle knows it well enough, even if Dudley is a little shaky on theory. They should be on their way back.”
“How far away are they from a working relay?”
“I don’t know. They set up eighteen units behind them, I’m still getting telemetry from sixteen of them. That puts them about twenty meters away from a working one.”
“Right,” Wilson said tersely. He could imagine it, the two of them annoyed their progress had been halted, maybe a quick squabble about going back right away or taking a fast look a few meters ahead.
“Should be back on-line any minute now,” Oscar said.
“Anna, Sandy, is there any response from those ships yet?”
“Sorry, sir, not yet,” Sandy Lanier reported. “They’re still on course. No signal, not directed at us.”
“Son of a bitch. Right, we need to start shouting. Bump up the power level in the transmission antenna. Make damn sure we get their attention.”
“Aye, sir.”
McClain Gilbert shot out of the carbon composite tunnel into the beacon compartment. In front of him, contact team members were freeflying out of the gap in the wall. Pale gas from their maneuvering packs swirled in rapid eddies through the beams of the remaining suit lights.
“Have we got them yet?” he asked Oscar.
“No. Nothing.”
“They should be back in range. For fuck’s sake, Emmanuelle knows what she’s doing. How long now?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
“No way. No way is that a comrelay failure. They’re in trouble.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I do.” He twisted himself around and pushed off the wall, heading for the tunnel that would take him directly down to level five.
“Helping them.”
“Get back to the shuttle!”
“I’m with you, Mac,” Francis Rawlins said.
Mac was already in the tunnel. Light shone on him from behind. “I’ll take care of them,” he told Francis.
“They’re my team, damnit.”
“Okay.”
“Mac, for Christ’s sake,” Oscar said. “Get back to the shuttle, both of you.”
“Two minutes, Oscar. Come on, man, that ain’t going to make any difference.”
“Jesus.”
“The wall is changing again, look,” Dudley said. He stopped himself, and shone his suit lights on the patch just in front of his helmet. Emmanuelle drifted up beside him.
The tattered aluminum now formed a series of small corrugations. Spaced between them was a yellow ceramic. It had small red markings on it. “That’s interesting.”
“Hey, is that writing?” Emmanuelle asked.
“Could be. What do you think, Oscar?”
“We’re not sure. Make sure you get a clean video of it.”
“Copy that.” Dudley waited a moment. “Geddit? Copy. That.”
“Just video the bloody thing,” Emmanuelle moaned.
“OhmyGod.” Sandy pushed herself back from her console as if it had just given her an electric shock. “Sir, missile launch. The lead ship has fired. Eight. Nine. Twelve. That’s confirmed as twelve missiles.”
“At us?” Wilson asked. He was pleased by how calm he sounded.
“Four of them, yes. The rest are on courses for ships two, three, and six.”
Wilson’s virtual finger stabbed at a communications icon. “Mac, Francis, get out of there now. I’m recalling the shuttle in three minutes.”
“We’re almost at level seven.”
“The aliens are firing at us. Get out of there. I am not going to repeat this order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The other ships are responding to one’s missile launch,” Anna called out. “Salvos launching from ships three, two, five, six, four. Oh, now eight has launched. Lead ship has fired again. Over one hundred missiles in flight. Sir, twenty-four of them are heading for us. God, they’re hitting fifteen gees.”
“Son of a bitch,” Wilson spat. “Pilot, take us over to the Watchtower. We’ve got to get that shuttle on board. Tu Lee, is the hyperdrive ready?”
“Aye, sir,” Tu Lee said. “We can go FTL at any time.”
Mac’s virtual hand twisted the throttle as far as the graphic would let him. He shot out of the station compartment into free space. His suit sensors locked on to the shuttle, and a bright red trajectory plot streaked across his virtual vision. He steered himself along it, ignoring the amber velocity warnings winking urgently. Francis was beside him, matching his flight.
A searing white light appeared from behind the Watchtower. Mac flinched inside his suit. Then logic kicked in. It was the Second Chance’s plasma drive, bringing the ship in close. Cutting down the time it would take for the shuttle to get inside its force field.
A time that shouldn’t have existed. I couldn’t leave them without making some effort to help. I just couldn’t. Who knew this would happen?
He started to decelerate a few meters short of the shuttle, using his legs to absorb most of the impact. Even so, he hit hard. The cilia on his soles gripped the fuselage grid, preventing any rebound. Francis came down beside him. “Bugger me,” she grunted. Her legs were bent sharply, torso twisting.
“Go,” Mac told the shuttle pilot.
“You’re not inside yet.”
“Just go. We’re secure.”
Space around him flared yellow as the chemical rockets ignited.
Oscar had hurried back into the bridge compartment. Wilson acknowledged him with a quick wave as he claimed his console. He was waiting for the shuttle, willing it across the gap. Both Jean Douvoir and the shuttle pilot did a superb job, rendezvousing thirty kilometers from the Watchtower. A small screen showed the little craft settle onto its cradle, which sank back into the hangar.
Wilson kept clenching his fist, which was disrupting his contact with the console interface pad. “Any contact?” he asked for the tenth time.
“No,” Oscar said. “I think Mac was right, they’re in trouble.”
“What the hell kind of trouble? It was dead over there. Cold and dead.”
“I don’t know.”
“Missile detonation,” Anna said. “Ho boy, here we go. Multiple blasts. High megatonnage. They’re using diverted energy pulsers, very heavy e-band emission, gamma and X-ray activity. Plenty of electronic warfare.”
“Where were they?”
“Ship three. Attacking and defending barrage. The ship’s still intact. Changing trajectory slightly.”
Wilson glanced at the forward portal that was tracking the twenty-four missiles powering toward them. Their velocity alone was terrifying.
“We should go,” Oscar said quietly.
“Right.” The second shuttle was on its cradle, a volunteer pilot ready to launch the second there was any signal from Verbeke or Bose.
“More missile launches,” Anna announced. “And we’re about to get another round of explosions. There’s an attack cluster almost in range of ship five.”
“Any reply to our signal?” Wilson asked.
Sandy shook her head.
“Detonations,” Anna sang out. “Shit, it’s like the warm-up for Armageddon out there.”
“Wilson,” Oscar urged. “It’s time.”
Captain Wilson Kime took a final look at the tracking display. The missiles were close now, and their true offensive capability remained unknown. He was coming perilously close to endangering his ship and crew. The bridge crew were all watching him, their expressions of defeat and regret, and yes, even guilt, were the same as his own.
“Hyperspace,” Wilson ordered. “Take us home.”
FIFTEEN
The lift doors opened smoothly, and police captain Hoshe Finn stepped into the familiar vestibule. For once he didn’t have to call ahead, the double doors into Morton’s penthouse were wide open. Several large flatbed trolleys had rolled through into the big split-level living room, delivering large plastic packing crates that were stacked against the walls. The process of loading the plush furniture into them had already begun, along with smaller household items all wrapped in sheets of foam. But after only three crates had been filled, the clearing-up process had come to a complete halt. All the GPbots that had been doing the work were motionless; some were still holding the objects they’d been carrying at the time of the reported incident with the harmonic-blade carving knife. Two junior managers from the Darklake National Bank, the court-appointed debt-receiver, were waiting somewhat nervously by the remaining settee in the conversation area. The supervisor from the removal company was sitting on the stone hearth in front of the fireplace, drinking tea from his thermos cup and smiling slyly.
“Where is she?” Hoshe asked. It said something for the power of unisphere publicity that he didn’t have to use his new police captain’s identity certificate. They all knew who he was.
“In there.” One of the bank suits pointed to the kitchen. “I want the bitch arrested.”
Hoshe raised an eyebrow while managing to look bored at the same time—something he’d seen Paula Myo do to great effect on several occasions.
Rather pleasingly, the suit flinched. “She threatened us,” he blustered. “And she’s damaged one of the GPbots. We’ll be requiring compensation for that.”
“Badly damaged?” Hoshe asked.
The supervisor glanced up from his tea. “Dunno. I’m not going in there. Psychos aren’t part of my job.” He sounded amused, though his face was carefully sober in front of the suits.
“Don’t blame you,” Hoshe said. The door into the kitchen was partly open. “Mellanie? It’s Hoshe Finn. Do you remember me? I need to talk to you.”
“Go away!” the girl y
elled. “All of you, just piss off.”
“Come on, Mellanie, you know I can’t do that. We have to talk. It’s just going to be you and me. No constables, or anything, you have my word.”
“No. I won’t. There’s nothing to talk about.”
Her voice had almost cracked. Hoshe sighed, and moved right up to the kitchen door. “You could at least offer me a drink. I always used to be offered something when we came here. Where’s the butler?”
There was a long silence followed by what sounded like a sniffle. “Gone,” she said quietly. “They all left, all of them.”
“Okay, I’ll make my own drink. I’m coming in now.” Hoshe edged around the door, still cautious, not that he thought there was any real danger.
Like the rest of the penthouse, the kitchen was huge and elaborate. Every worktop had been carved out of pink and gray marble, with the cupboard doors below them made from burnished brentwood. The cabinets above the worktop all had transparent doors, showing off the expensive sets of crockery and glasses. He had to walk around the pool-table-sized central workbench to find Mellanie. She was sitting on the floor in a corner, hunched up tight as if she were trying to push herself through the wall. A harmonic-blade carving knife lay on the terracotta floor tiles just in front of her.
Hoshe wanted to squat down beside her, illustrating support and friendship just like the training scenarios emphasized, but he hadn’t quite lost enough weight to do that comfortably. Instead he lounged back, resting his buttocks on the marble worktop. “You should be careful of those harmonic blades,” he said casually. “They can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. Lots of junior debt-receivers can get bits chopped off if your aim’s good enough.”
Mellanie looked up. Her auburn hair was in complete disarray. She’d been crying badly; sticky trails down her cheeks. Even so, she remained gorgeous. Perhaps even more so in this state: a classic damsel in distress. “What?”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 58