by Tom Shepherd
“It means a worst case scenario. Your location is no longer remote enough. Too many people know you are here.”
“But the Ovoins—”
“Forget the friendly birds, Wricket,” Tyler said. “You’ve been compromised.”
“We must get you off the station,” the Kozie said.
“And turn the place over to Sakura House?” Tyler said. “They will use its contents to attack peaceful star nations. Hideki Tsuchiya wants a New Galactic Empire, with himself as Emperor.”
“I was safe here for so long.”
“I’m sorry, little friend. You have been a faithful steward, but the bad guys are inbound.”
“I cannot let them seize the last Imperial battle station.” He sighed. It was a human gesture, perhaps a remnant of the Miyosian memories he outpictured.
“What info are you holding back?” Tyler said.
“I did not tell you everything. There are decks above and below where I have never taken Ovoins or Dengathi. Decks with weaponry and technologies too terrible to comprehend. My ancestors allowed themselves to perish rather than employ those awful engines of destruction, even though it might have saved whole worlds.”
“Why was it preserved, Wricket? Why didn’t your people destroy all traces of weaponized advanced technology?”
“We hold knowledge sacred as some races do their holy books. For Miyosians, to delete scientific breakthroughs was unthinkable.”
“Time to re-think your core values.” Tyler took a deep breath. “Does this station have a self-destruct mechanism?”
There was a long pause. Considering the speed at which the computer entity processed information, it lasted a million years.
“Not directly. But I could initiate a stoppage cascade inside…” He gasped for breath.
“Steady, guy. Billions of lives depend on you.”
“A stoppage cascade inside the confinement field that surrounds the singularity which powers the station. The field will collapse, releasing a mini-black hole.”
Jesus H. Christ. This battle station houses a mini-black hole as its power source? If the containment field dissipates, it will suck everything within range into its event horizon and crush it to oblivion. God knows what that range might be, but the Tadpole better not be within a light year of this place when it happens.
Tyler said, “I can offer you a ride back to civilization.”
“I exist only within this computer network.”
“So, we’ll transfer your furry ass to the MLC of our ship. Can’t you micro-compact your program?”
“Yes… This is a terrible step to contemplate. We will lose massive technological data, histories and literature stretching back millions of years. Not just the World Crusher. The ability to heal all diseases, extend life thousands of years, apex channel navigation, teleportation across light years. A civilization that existed two million years ago perfected time travel. Unimaginable! The Galactic Empire forbade its use, but stored the knowledge. All will be lost.”
“My father’s name is Noah,” Tyler said. “Why don’t you pick the best and preserve it within the Ark he sent you? And nothing weaponized, please.”
“This station cannot fall into the hands of hostile powers. Let me process the decision. I will tell you my answer.”
“It’s your call, little guy.” And you can explain it to Dad, because I’m already on the shit list for blowing up Jump Gate Omega.
Wricket said, “One missing datapoint—how did the Sakura forces locate me?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’m afraid I do. Suzie discovered something disturbing. Has a crew member on your ship activated a pendalux?”
Tyler grit his teeth. Sonuvabitch. “I’ll handle it.”
Twenty-Eight
Tyler arrived beside the captain’s chair, where Lovey Frost presided over a skeleton crew of Flávio at the helm and João at nav. He ignored Lovey’s surprised greeting and moved to the Tavares duo.
“Where’s the pendalux?” Tyler demanded.
“It is safe, Captain.” João hooked a thumb around the thin chain on his neck. “I am wearing it.”
Tyler snatched the dangling crystal stick and yanked it off his neck, then crushed it with a heel. The younger Tavares cried out unintelligibly.
“Who are you working for?” Tyler said.
“What are you saying?” Flávio stepped from the helmsman’s bench and moved between them.
“Your son has sold us out. He’s the reason Kaito could track us. He suggested a lengthy delay before boarding the starbase, because he knew a Sakura House fleet was inbound to this location, homing on that goddamned pendalux.”
Flávio turned to the younger Tavares. “João, is this true?”
“No! I would never betray you, Father.”
“If not me,” Flávio said, “would you betray the Matthews Family?”
“They are not my family,” João spat. “Even if you are the father of his bastard brother.”
“Captain…” Lovey Frost produced a blaster from a leg pocket in her flight suit.
Tyler shook his head. “He’s done.”
João stood. “You had better kill me, Matthews. I hate you. All of you. And I will not stop until—”
Flávio backhanded his son across the face. “Cale a boca, criança!” Shut up, Child!
“Get off the ship, João. You can greet your employers personally.”
“Captain, por favor.” Flávio raised pleading hands. “Place him under arrest. I will guarantee he behaves himself.”
João held his wounded jaw. “No, Father! You are angry. I understand. Let’s leave the ship. Tsuchiya will grant you amnesty.”
“I have no intention of leaving the Tadpole,” Flávio said. “I know Tyler well enough to suspect what he is contemplating, and you do not want to be aboard this station when it happens.”
“The Matthews Family has done nothing for you,” João said. “They are rich, and we have always struggled. Why are you loyal to his mother, when she turned her back on you?”
“Money does not make you a man,” Flávio said. “Loyalty is not a commodity to trade for lucre.”
“You could have your choice of women—”
“People don’t choose to love. It simply happens. I have loved two women. One of them still lives.” Flávio looked to Tyler. “Request the prisoner be detained in quarters until you determine what charges you intend to file against him.”
“Only if he answers one question first,” Tyler said. “The other approaching fleet has not been identified. Who are they?”
“I do not know.”
“Lovey, if he lies again, please shoot J.B.’s half-brother.”
The black lieutenant raised her blaster. “You got it, Boss-man.”
“Father?” João squawked.
Flávio shook his head. “I am with Tyler.”
João’s eyes darted from face to face. “Haruto Tsuchiya commands the Sakura House force. I know nothing of another fleet, I swear it!”
Lovey Frost looked to Tyler, who shrugged. She fired, striking young Tavares squarely in the chest. João slumped on the deck by the nav bench.
“Full stun,” Frost said.
A moment later Julieta emerged from the lift followed by Prince Zenna and Paco Léon. Her arm was still in a sling from the deep cut at the jagged metal of the hull breach.
“Weapons fire?” she said breathlessly.
Tyler thumbed at the unconscious João. Doctor Solorio checked the patient and pronounced him well enough to move. Paco and Mr. Blue carried Flávio’s son to the lift to deposit him in locked quarters a few decks below. Julieta took Zenna’s post at the sensor console, something she could operate with one hand.
“I suspect you have done him a favor,” Capitão Tavares said.
“He can explain it to a Commonwealth jury,” Tyler said.
“Would Star Lawyers consider—?”
“Hell, no.” Tyler tried opening a comm channel to Wricket, but t
here was no reply. “I’m starting to worry about Suzie.”
“I’m starting to worry about those incoming fleets,” Lovey said.
“Prima, anything on sensors?” Tyler said.
Julieta tapped the console. “Difficult to receive passive input through the energetic field surrounding the battle station. And the blue dwarf’s radio-thermal activity scrambles active searches.”
“Keep trying.”
Finally, Susie appeared in the XO seat beside Tyler. She looked unfazed by the experience, blonde hair perfectly pinned in a bun at the back of her head.
“The other fleet is blocking all intrusive scans. Wricket says its mass suggests the second armada is twice the size of the Sakura House flotilla. At current speeds, Tsuchiya’s taskforce will arrive in about three minutes, two minutes before the other ships.”
“Wricket, we need to talk!”
The auburn tree kangaroo materialized beside the captain’s chair. He carried a canvas bag with a shoulder strap.
“I brought items for your Ark,” he said. “Nothing weaponized.”
“Welcome aboard,” Tyler said.
“My battle station will implode into a singularity in ten minutes. I suggest a hasty departure.”
“Not without warning Haruto to stand off,” Tyler said.
“From what I have learned about aggressors,” Wricket said, “they would not afford you the same opportunity.”
“Maybe not. But, ‘They are not our teachers.’”
Suzie smiled. “You’ve read about Omar Mukhtar, the Libyan who fought the invading fascists during World War Two?”
“I saw the movie. Let’s go. Full shields once we clear the hanger.”
He ordered the Tadpole to hover to the docking bay door. Wricket lowered the forcefield, and the Dengathi ship hurled forward into the blazing heat of a blue dwarf star. Tyler took the helm and swung around the House of the Silent Moons for one last look.
Although Wricket had brought a bag filled with data cubes and downloaded his program into the Tadpole’s MLC, the station still housed advanced modules and records of super-science from races that no longer existed, technologies which could transform life in the thirty-second century.
But the galaxy was not ready for world-shattering, or God-knows-what other tribulations that could escape Pandora’s ancient box. Time travel? Here today, never existed tomorrow? Even the prospect of outliving a Sequoia wasn’t as pleasant when you consider diseased trees like Hideki Tsuchiya crowding the human forest.
“Flávio, set a course for Terran space. Hold your thumb over the activate square and stand by, please.”
“Yes, sir,” the elder Tavares said.
“Wricket, will you go internal, maximize our options?” Tyler said.
“I will merge with the MLC.” He disappeared.
Tyler sat back. “Suzie, open a channel to the Sakura House fleet. Let’s see if Haruto has regained his sense of humor since Dad whupped his ass.”
Yumiko Matsuda emerged from the lift and sat in a jump seat. “Tyler-san, do not trust Haruto. He has no honor.”
“Trust is off the table, Yumi-san.”
Zenna returned and relieved Julieta of scanning duties. She folded down a jump seat beside Officer Matsuda.
A solemn Haruto Tsuchiya appeared on the main viewscreen. He made no attempt to conceal his hostility.
“Matthews, are you ready to die?”
“Fuck you, Haruto.” Tyler checked his chronometer. “We’re about to kick this kabuki rave into high gear. You got six minutes to turn tail and run, or I won’t be responsible for what happens to your fleet.”
The Sakura House armada dropped from hyperspace in a cloud of ships that surrounded the battle station and Tyler’s little vessel. Suzie reported fifteen heavy cruisers, twenty-one destroyers, and a pair of battlecarriers. The carriers immediately launched wave after wave of attack drones. Two hundred, four hundred, eight hundred… Tyler shut down the scanner on his console.
Haruto frowned like an actor playing an Asian demon-god. “Surrender and face judgement, Tyler. Or die here.”
Mr. Blue muted the outgoing transmissions. “Friend Tyler, they are employing the Quirt-Thymean FTL freezing device. Shall I release us?”
“Not yet. Let them think we’re snared.” He unmuted Haruto. “So, you got me. Why did you need the other fleet?”
Haruto’s face momentarily lost its sneering distaste. “What other fleet? Your attempt to stall—”
“Order those incompetent motherfuckers on your bridge to scan for incoming vessels, then get back to me.”
Haruto snapped a series of commands in Japanese and Terran. When he returned to the conversation the eldest son of Tsuchiya had lost some of his arrogance.
“I will spare your life, if you call off your fleet and surrender the Imperial battle station to me.”
Oh, man. Would I love to do that. Sure, Harry old boy. Sail your dumb ass right into that big old docking bay and watch the universe turn inside-out with you aboard.
“Well, I’d like to oblige, but—”
“Tyler!” Suzie said. “The other blokes are Parvian!”
Tyler laughed. “Haruto-sama, you are fucked in so many exotic ways. That incoming fleet? It’s the Parvian navy. They ain’t looking for me. They’re looking for you.”
He muted the outgoing. “Suzie, fire off a flash alert, warning the Parves in Kaboolik. Tell them to stand off this system. Explain the situation and danger.”
“On it.”
“This cannot be real. It is a sensor ghost,” Haruto said. “You are attempting to make a fool of me.”
“No, I think you’ve accomplished that all by yourself.” He muted the comms and pointed to Zenna and Flavio. “Now.”
Mr. Blue fired off a back-pulse with the same devastating effect as it had during Kaito’s pursuit. The FTL-freezing ECM dissolved, and when Flávio punched the activate square, the light wall opened and the Howling Tadpole fell into the Cumberland Tunnel.
After they were certain no ships pursued them, Tyler ordered a shipwide stand down from red alert and asked Dorla to break out some bottles of cold Harry Truman beer. She briefly argued for her no drinking on duty rule, then relented.
“Well, I guess you’ve earned it today,” Mrs. Léon said.
They sipped at duty stations while Wricket played samples of melodic compositions from dozens of extinct civilizations over the ship’s PA system. About twenty minutes into the interlude, Suzie published a bulletin.
“I’m monitoring Parvian frequencies,” she said. “Haruto’s technicians discovered the cascade in progress, and his fleet escaped at max sublight. Bad bloody move. They got away from the implosion zone, but the Parvians caught them about six AU from the station, and the battle rages as we speak.”
Tyler whistled. “Haruto better break off and run for his life. Parvians take no prisoners.”
Suzie said, “We’re getting a video message from the Parve fleet.”
“Let’s see it.”
The viewscreen filled with a lovely face, brilliant smile and bouncy blonde hair. Of course.
“Hi, guys! Tyler, you and Suzie blow up battle stations the way you kiss. Very efficiently. Great finish.” She snickered bewitchingly. “Makes me wet to think about it.”
“Hi, Sunny,” Tyler said. “How’s the battle going?”
“Oh, very, very, very good. We’re blasting Tsuchiya’s fleet, but Haruto got away.” She smiled. “We’ll find him again.”
“Dad will send you a crate of Missouri moonshine. How did your people get here so quickly?”
“We kinda have this series of ancient Jump Gates that Parvians don’t share with other races. The closest Gate was only twenty-six Terran hours away at max FTL. And we’ve been tracking the major players in Tsuchiya’s Sakura House, so we knew where Haruto was going.”
Tyler chuckled. “You bugged their command ships.”
She returned his laughter with a girlish giggle. “You didn’t hear
that from me. Hi, Suzie!”
“Hello, Jool-Gheri. Left your sea bag aboard the Tadpole, luv.”
“Hold it for me,” she said. “I’m really, really, really sure our paths will cross again.”
Tyler said, “Does this mean the Parvian Republic and Terran Commonwealth are now allied in the battle against Tsuchiya’s New galactic Empire?”
“That’s a question for our governments to trash out.”
“Hash out!” Mr. Blue cried., He smiled broadly. “I finally knew a correct metaphor.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Jool-Gheri laughed. “Let the politicians hash it. Just looking forward to seeing all of you again.”
“Not aboard this piece of space trash,” Tyler said. “Wait ’till you visit the Patrick Henry.”
“Is it a good place to play strip poker?”
The bridge crew laughed loudly.
Suzie said, “Beyond your wildest dreams, sweetie.”
“Do I get to meet Tyler’s brother?”
They spoke for a few more minutes, then she terminated the conversation at the request of her host vessel. Leaning on an elbow, Tyler turned to Suzie.
“Do you buy that?” he said. “They were monitoring Haruto’s course. They grew suspicious, plotted his destination, guessed that it was to the last remaining Imperial battle station, somewhere in deep space. So, the Parves assembled a hundred attack ships and arrived a few minutes after Haruto did.”
“Not a bloody chance. Our girlfriend lied to us.”
“No, not technically,” Tyler said. “I’ll bet they’ve got Sakura House wired like a spymaster’s Christmas tree. And sure, Parve intel knows where most of Tsuchiya’s ships are headed, but…” he shrugged.
Suzie nodded. “Sounds more like Deus ex Machina than good intelligence gathering.”
“Really, really, really.” Tyler glanced at Capitão Tavares. “Flávio, anything you’d care to add? How did the Parvians find us?”
Tavares sipped a Harry Truman. “I… uh… might have set the pendalux to an Apexcom frequency monitored by my associates at the Republic.”
Tyler slouched in his command chair. “Care to elaborate?”
“I love my son, but he has too much of his mother in him. My wife was a master spy for the Parvians. And a dispatcher, like Jool-Gheri.”