“Simple. If you’ve already taken us over, how would we know?”
“I respectfully suggest you wouldn’t be asking us that very question if we had.”
“Yeah. Unless that’s to damp down any lingering paranoia.”
“In which case there’s nothing I can say that will reassure you.”
“All right. Then either I’m an unknowing zombie and doing this at your bidding, or taking out the Salvation of Life is genuinely my own shit idea. The result is the same: It’s got to be done. So how do we go about capturing a quint?”
“Well, first—” Jessika pushed down into the initiator, her hand sinking into the gray surface as if it was a thick oil. When she pulled it out, she was holding a small sky-blue cylinder no wider than her palm.
Kandara was aware of Tral stiffening. “And that is?” she asked lightly.
“An entanglement suppressor.”
“I’m impressed. You know how to break quantum entanglement?”
“No, not break,” Soćko said. “This device just reduces the efficiency of the connection. That way the other four quint in the union won’t know exactly what’s happening to their fifth segment, even though they’ll know it’s still alive. Hopefully they’ll assume the body was overwhelmed by the battle. That gives us a window to use the neurovirus. Once Jessika assumes command of its mind, we’ll remove the suppression from the entanglement, and she can take over the remaining quint segments.”
“There’s a lot of assumptions and maybes in there,” Kandara said.
“The neurovirus works. It’s the rest of the plan that’s ambitious. But it’s your plan, not mine.”
Kandara held her hand out to Jessika, ready to ask for the suppressor. Then Callum’s icon splashed up in her tarsus lenses display, and she told Zapata to accept. “Yes?”
“The first missile is about to reach Kayli,” he said. “We deployed a batch of satellites around it before it was evacuated. I’m hoping for a whole tranche of data here; there’s got to be something in there that’ll help when it’s Yanat’s turn in the firing line. So I’d appreciate some analysis from our allies.”
She didn’t call him out on the whole allies thing. People would stop listening to her if she became the group’s bore on the topic. “Sure.”
The lab had a big screen, which was streaming the images coming from Alpha Defense. A squadron of small sensor satellites had flown into position around the Kayli asteroid, providing high-intensity coverage out to twenty thousand kilometers.
“Mary,” Kandara muttered as she saw the approaching missile’s velocity. “Is that figure right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Callum said. “Twelve thousand kilometers per second. Or point zero four light speed, if you want to get technical.”
“After one day accelerating?”
“At twenty-five gees. Not even our starships use that kind of acceleration.”
“Christ almighty, does your defense idea have a reaction time that can match this?” she asked.
“Dunno. Soćko, what kind of distance will a missile launch its independent warheads from?”
“It can be anything up to half a million kilometers away, and they accelerate at around two hundred and fifty gees.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Callum said.
“No. But remember that the distance and velocity actually work in your favor.”
“How so?”
“The warheads have got to be extremely accurate. They have no time to course correct. If their vector is off by a centimeter when they’re ten thousand kilometers out, that translates into a massive overshoot, and at that velocity it will take them days to turn around and strike again.”
“What about particle impact when they’re on their approach?” Callum asked. “What kind of shielding do they have?”
“Same as the primary missile: gravity distortion, which is a modified function of their drive. It creates a bow wave effect in space-time, which deflects particles around the missile.”
“So a kinetic strike against them is impossible?”
“Depends on the size of the impact projectile you’re throwing at them. At the kind of velocity these warheads achieve just before impact, anything bigger than a pebble will overwhelm the distortion wave. So when they launch, the missile processor has to guide them along a clear route in.”
“So if I flood their approach vector with mass…”
“Should work. Providing the mass is dense enough.”
“Here it comes,” Kandara warned.
The sensor satellites clustered around the defenseless Kayli asteroid showed the missile hurtling toward them. At fifty thousand kilometers away, eight warheads separated from the main craft, accelerating outward in an elegant petal formation. Half a second later the warheads curved around, bringing them back in line to impact Kayli.
“Mother Mary,” Kandara whispered. “You were right, two-fifty gees.” Zapata splashed up the warheads’ flight time: four seconds.
Visual spectrum sensors showed each warhead as a rosette flare of violet as particles of solar wind struck the distortion effect. Individual warheads began to fluctuate their acceleration by tiny increments, so their arrival was desynchronized.
Magnification flicked up, giving her a tighter view on Kayli. Course projection lines sliced elegantly around the giant plasma plumes squirting out of the asteroid’s MHD chambers. The first warhead streaked in, too fast for Kandara’s brain to follow. She knew the explosion was going to be powerful, but the phenomenal scale of the reality came as a vicious shock; Zapata reported it as spiking at over three hundred megatons. Kayli was instantly eclipsed by an incandescent sphere, causing the MHD plumes to shrink and fracture in swirls as if they were towers felled by a quake. The remaining warheads pierced the explosion wavefront, detonating within milliseconds of one another, to be climaxed by the main missile itself—which brought a five-hundred-megaton antimatter explosion to the cataclysm. Satellites dropped out as radiation and emp bursts exterminated even their ultra-hardened electronics, flicking the team’s collective viewpoint farther and farther back. The meager survivors, peering in from twenty thousand kilometers through thick filters, revealed a miniature sun whose outer surface was both expanding and cooling at a fierce rate. A minute later, and the shell of glowing ions had sunk from their initial atomic fury to a webbed purple haze. As it darkened further, massive chunks of asteroid, glowing like volcanic lava and spitting off wobbling cometary streamers, came tumbling out of the apex in every direction.
“Holy shit,” Callum said. “These Olyix fuckers really are dead serious.”
“Do you still think you can fight them off?” Kandara asked.
“Maybe. We need to analyze the blast impact, and see how good that protective distortion effect really is. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a busy ninety minutes.”
His icon vanished from her splash. She didn’t want to look at Jessika or Soćko right now. She just knew they’d be full of pity and sympathy for her, for her species, which was the last thing she needed. Instead she took a moment, zeroing herself as she did before going into combat, banishing useless emotion. “Right, then. So now we know: This Olyix kidnap mission really needs to work. Apart from the entanglement suppressor, what else have you got for me?”
“It’ll be down to tactics more than anything,” Jessika said, equally brisk.
“And if there’s going to be any advantage to taking out the Salvation of Life, it needs to be done early in the elevation phase,” Soćko said. “Which produces a pleasing confluence.”
“How?”
“The Deliverance ships will reach some habitats before they arrive on Earth. That gives us an opportunity to arrange a kidnap on our terms. Any remaining humans in the habitat will be running to the remaining portals when the quint gains access to the interior. That provides you with a consider
able tactical benefit for an ambush. They won’t be expecting it in the middle of an evacuation.”
“Good idea,” Kandara admitted. “So what else can you make for me?”
“You’ll need armor,” Jessika said. “Good armor. The weapons the Olyix use to bring down their prey will be nonlethal. But as you’ve seen, they don’t necessarily need an intact body for cocooning.”
I watch.
And—
Beyond the outer comet ring that encircles this star, a gentle gravity ripple distorts the fabric of space-time for the briefest of moments. It washes against my perception fronds, and I instantly refocus my attention on its source. More ripples are radiating outward in a pattern I determine to be a gravitonic drive, moving at point one eight three light speed, and decelerating. The vessel has a dense space-time distortion wrapped around it, deflecting particles that are on a collision course. The tenuous scattering of hydrogen atoms that populate the interstellar void whirl away in chaos, building into a cyclone that trails behind the vessel for more than five AUs. Their dying indigo sparkles flutter away as low-energy ions, still too faint to be detected by any of the sensors that the Morgan has englobed this planetary system with. But my fronds perceive them clearly.
Soon the deluge of gravity waves will reach a peak where human technology becomes aware of it.
They will know something is coming.
It can be only one thing.
I run checks on my compressed functions, confirming they are ready to activate.
I will soon become whole.
Until then…I wait.
I watch.
* * *
The Actaeon had an aesthetic different from anything Dellian had experienced before. Loud orchestral music was playing, heavy on violins and timpani drums, as he walked down one of the twisting main corridors of a habitation spiral with half of the squad, everyone marveling at the smooth lines of pearl-white metalloceramic that the starship interior was built from. Vents and discreet systems channels were elongated into a virtuoso Jugendstil lattice across the walls and ceiling, subtly illuminated in glowing cobalt and cyan, while systems modules lurked behind circular indentations outlined in tangerine.
Double doors swished open, and they entered an observation lounge. The drums thundered away as a choir added their vocals, building up the drama. Ahead of them, the bulkhead was a shallow curve of transparent übercarbon. Dellian pressed himself against it, with Falar on one side and Xante on the other, all eager and awed like they were still fourteen and back on the Immerle estate, watching for awesome predators beyond the protective fence. The dark realm of Bennu’s strange and majestic cavern outside was amplified by an activeoptic layer in the übercarbon. As they looked upward as the music soared, the Actaeon’s arresting structure formed a triple helix wrapped around a long, tapering spine that opened out into five silver prongs as if it were a spear for some particularly aggressive mythogod. At the aft of the spine was a clump of three geodesic crystal domes, a kilometer in diameter. Their glittering Victoriana shells contained an eerie fluctuating saffron glow, cages for a struggling primordial light that no longer belonged in this universe. The music reached a triumphant crescendo as Dellian stared at them.
“What’s in those?” he asked.
“What?” Yirella called above the music.
“The light?” His fingers made a fast cutting motion across his throat.
The anthemic concerto swirled away in a harpsichord flourish. Dellian instinctively glanced around, half expecting to see musicians stomping off in a sulk. “What’s that light?”
“Cherenkov overspill,” she told him. “Those are the engine nacelles. We think they’ll be able to accelerate the Actaeon close to point nine eight light speed.”
Dellian searched Bennu’s shadowy gulf until he found the dim gray patch that was the Morgan. It certainly didn’t glow in the dark like the Actaeon. “I’ve never seen gravitonic drives like that before.”
“That’s because the Actaeon isn’t a warship,” Ellici said. “We can be freer when it comes to propulsion design. Less inhibitor shielding allows us to take the propulsion force close to the theoretical maximum.”
“We’re also cutting back on mass,” Yirella said. “The life-support structure has some garden areas, but no open parkland like you have in a standard toroid.”
“Why?” Uret asked. “You just said you are freer to expand the design.”
“This isn’t a generation ship,” she told him flatly. “When you leave on the Actaeon you aren’t going to be founding a new civilization. This is about exploring, discovering, and joining an established society.”
He groaned, rolling his eyes for emphasis. “Not the Sanctuary quest again? Please, Saints!”
“What you go hunting for is up to the Actaeon’s council. All we’re trying to do is build in as many flight options for you as we can. And that boils down to a very long range.”
“Don’t include me in this.”
Dellian and Yirella exchanged a surprised glance. “I thought you were first to sign up?” he said.
“Well…yeah,” Uret mumbled sheepishly. “But, you know…”
“No.”
“Okay, it’s like this. Now that Kenelm doesn’t go batshit crazy if we talk about maybe doing something else other than supporting the Strike, I started thinking about it. Specifically, the odds.”
“The odds on what?” Yirella asked.
“Of finding anything out there, let alone a human civilization in full swing. I reckon the odds of the Olyix finding us are a lot better. I mean, our Vayan radio has been yelling out here we are for decades.”
“But that’s logical,” she complained. “The Actaeon isn’t about logic; it’s about human emotion and basic freedoms. We have the right to live how we want to. That includes the right to refuse to fight in a strategy that was dictated ten thousand years ago.”
Uret shrugged, unable to meet anyone’s eye. “Yeah, but if we don’t take out the Olyix, who will? Besides…you guys. You need me.”
Dellian genuinely thought Yirella was going to punch poor old Uret; she certainly looked exasperated enough. With a big grin, he taunted: “Don’t want to desert your friends, huh? Conscience finally kicking in?”
“Screw you!” Uret said, but couldn’t muster any rage behind it.
Laughing, Dellian kissed him hard. Xante came over and gave him a big hug. Everyone else was smiling happily—except Yirella. “How many in the Actaeon group are thinking like this now?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” he said a shade defensively.
“Who cares?” Dellian said. “Cue the music again. He’s staying!”
“But—”
“Don’t take this personally, please,” Uret said to her. “I know how hard you’ve worked to make this possible. Believe me, everyone who got behind the Actaeon movement is incredibly grateful for everything you’ve done. And this ship.” He waved his arms around enthusiastically. “Saints, it’s like an old Earth palace. Amazing! Kenelm should get you to oversee a replacement for the Morgan.”
“That’s not why I did this,” she said.
“I know. You did it because you care about people. That’s what makes you our greatest treasure. We all know Dellian doesn’t deserve you.”
“Hey!”
“What can I say? I speak truth to power.”
“Oh, please,” Ellici interjected. “If you ever faced up to power your brain would melt out of your ears.”
Uret chuckled. “Harsh but fair. That’s why we have Dellian as our fearless leader.”
Dellian could see how perturbed Yirella was by Uret’s switch. Or was it defection? Can you defect from defecting? Is that re-defecting? “Will you show us the stellar search center?” he asked her. “I’ve had to listen to you bang on about it for a year now.”
She nodded slowly, regathering her enthusiasm. “Sure. We’re going to use ten sub-ships in a bracelet formation around the Actaeon to provide a massive sensor baseline. They’ll be equipped with radio telescopes as well as optical. And we’ll scan for gravity waves, too; they’re a sure indicator of advanced drive technology in operation.”
“How far out will the ancillary ships fly?” Xante asked.
“Ten AUs,” Yirella told him.
Dellian was impressed with his friend, given Xante didn’t have the slightest interest in astrosensor technology. He turned to Uret as everyone else trooped out after Yirella, and mouthed: idiot.
Uret held out his hands, palms up, in a what-can-you-do gesture.
The rest of the tour (thankfully sans music) went without a hitch. But Dellian was relieved when it was over; he found the enforced jollity required of him to be as draining as it was distressing. So he let out a relieved sigh as they left one of the gardens and everything went black. As always, there was the single second Dellian hated most in the universe, where he was held motionless in a spread-eagle pose—utterly vulnerable. Then the contact sheaths curled back from his limbs and the egg’s upper segments withdrew, their tentacles pulling them back into the ceiling recesses.
Dellian looked around at the others emerging from their eggs with varying expressions of distaste.
“So how long will it take to build?” Falar asked.
Ellici bent down so she could put an arm around his shoulders. “Hopefully no more than a couple of years.”
“Two years? Saints, why? The shipyards only take five months to assemble an attack cruiser.”
“You’ve just answered your own question,” she told him merrily. “Our shipyards are designed to produce attack cruisers. So first we have to build the shipyard that can build the Actaeon. Designing that is actually more complicated than the starship itself. And before that we have to fabricate the manufacturing platforms that’ll build the shipyard. At least our standard assembly stations and initiators can do that.”
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