The Broken Third (Digitesque Book 4)

by Guerric Haché

  “Until formal bureaucratic relations can be established, it is also assumed that military assets of all kinds will not cross from the Union into the Dominion or vice-versa, barring exceptional circumstances to be agreed upon by representatives of Union and Dominion military forces.

  “Finally, pending further negotiations, the Colonial Union recognizes Ada Liu of Earth as the Dominion’s primary external representative, and recognizes her authority to act on behalf of the Dominion.”

  She looked up. “Why Dominion?”

  Deptha smiled. “Those are the terms used in the Armistice treaty after we won our independence from Earth and Mir. We can change it in future treaties if you like.”

  She sighed. “So we won’t kill each others’ people, take their things, or go to war against one another, and you’re going to trust that I speak for Earth?”

  “And any other inhabited bodies in the Sol system, yes.”

  “You said this was plain language.”

  Deptha chuckled, looking down. “Yes, well, the lawyers would have made it utterly incomprehensible, but we managed a compromise.”

  She looked at the piece of paper she was holding; at the bottom were two fingerprints in black ink, one under the name Alan Niu, and the other under the name Jesst Serresk. She had never seen a bulky mirran fingerprint before - nor a human one anywhere other than staining clean glass, for that matter. The third name there, Ada Liu, had no such fingerprint underneath it. Yet.

  She looked at Deptha, her eyes flicking across to Felisha and Izha, who stood cross-armed and side-by-side. She left Sanako out of this visual address. “Just to make things clear, if by signing this I somehow make you think you have the right to mistreat me or my home planet because of convoluted phrasing riddles, I will personally hunt down and kill all three of you, then figure out a way to bomb your planets to ash. Clear?”

  “You’ve made your preferred conflict resolution strategies quite clear.” Felisha nodded to the window; Sanako rubbed her arms, as if cold. If she squinted out the window, Ada thought she might see a tiny cloud of wreckage silhouetted against the planet, all that was left of Senjat’s attempt to catch her.

  “Good. I’ll sign this thing. How -”

  Deptha was already presenting a small metal box with wet black foam in it. “Touch a finger onto the ink, and then just press it on the paper. Simple.”

  She hesitated. Cherry, any way this might be dangerous? A trick?

  Based on your suit sensor data, the content of the box is simple black ink. Nothing to be concerned about.

  She nodded and pressed her index finger into the ink, then onto the paper. Done. Treaty signed.

  She grimaced a bit as she rubbed the ink into her other fingers to thin it out; she would clean up later. Deptha grinned broadly. “Thank you. You are now formally recognized as Earth’s representative in the Union.”

  A title she would have to leave behind in a hurry when she returned to Earth. Still, perhaps she would come back out here, once she had sorted everything out. It might not hurt to check up on old acquaintances in a few years.

  “Now that that’s over with, I need to speak with you about an urgent matter.” Felisha stepping forward. “It’s all the more pressing now that we’ve seen what Earth’s tiniest ships are capable of.”

  Ada looked at the two admirals more closely. They looked stressed, Felisha’s shoulders tense and Izha’s ears flattened, but maybe that wasn’t all Ada’s doing. “What’s going on?”

  The admirals sent Sanako outside and shut the door, leaving the four of them alone. Felisha took a deep breath. “When the mirrans on Earth started beaming signals at Mir, we noticed an increase in tachyon transmissions through Union space.” Felisha took a deep breath. “Haint transmissions.”

  Ada scowled, leaning forwards. “Haints? Gods, why am I not surprised?”

  “Because you’re an impetuous cynic.” Izha grumbled, flicking an ear. “We destroyed the last of their incursions in the war, but military intelligence continues to pick up Haint transmissions pulsing through Union space. Usually just a few every year, very infrequent and very brief. We thought they might have probes just outside our territory.”

  Outside of Union space? Ada frowned. She hadn’t thought much about the world beyond the Union yet.

  “Unfortunately, when transmissions started coming in from Earth, the Haint signals became more frequent than we’ve ever seen.”

  Ada remembered when the outers had first received messages from the Union. “You told them to stop transmitting.”

  “Yes. We feared that further signals from Earth would… cause a reaction.”

  “An invasion?”

  “We don’t know.”

  Ada had a sinking feeling she knew the answer to the question she was about to ask better than they did. “From where?”

  “We don’t know. This is why we were considering returning to Earth to recover military hardware, or at least to understand why the Haints went through the trouble of creating the technophage to knock out Earth. We thought Earth might somehow have been too dangerous for them to attack directly.” Felisha glanced at Izha. “This was why Admiral Ashur decided to collect you from Earth, for study and to plan return missions.”

  Ada’s eyes widened. All this because the first outer transmissions had excited the Haints somehow. “Well, our ships chew yours to fucking pieces apparently, so there’s that.”

  Felisha’s fists tightened. “Ada, I would appreciate some respect for the loss of life you caused.”

  She bit her lip. She wanted to say she had caused no loss of life undeservedly, but Elsa apparently hadn’t seen it that way, so she wasn’t going to argue about this.

  Felisha brushed a strand of greying blonde from her face. “The transmissions are alarmingly constant now.”

  Ada held up her hands. “You don’t know where they’re coming from? Are they encrypted?”

  Felisha and Izha shared uneasy glances. “Yes. We can’t crack them. What do you know about encryption?”

  Ada’s eyes widened. “Nothing. You won’t like this, but can my ship access your records of the transmissions?”

  They exchanged uneasy glances, but Izha nodded. “These are exceptional circumstances.” She tapped something by her ear. “Lieutenant, please transmit files on recent Haint transmissions to Ada Liu’s ship. Only those files, lieutenant.”

  Ada subvocalized to Cherry. They’re going to send you something - can you check it against the transmissions you’re trying to decrypt?

  Absolutely. Receiving packets now.

  A brief pause.

  These transmissions are identical to the ones coming from Chang’e Major.

  Ada looked up at the admirals. “Fuck. You’re not going to like this.”

  “What?”

  “I know where the transmissions -”

  Red lights flooded the entire ship, a shrill siren poured into their ears, and everyone in the room jumped.

  “I know where they’re coming from!” Ada pointed out at the planet. “In the atmosphere!”

  Felisha looked out in fear, and suddenly Izha hissed and sputtered, ears flattening, eyes widening, teeth baring. She reached out to grab Felisha and shake her shoulder. “The bridge. The fucking bridge!”

  I have decrypted the Haint transmissions, but it is unclear what exact information is being transmitted.

  Deptha sat down quietly in the conference room, reaching for his communicator, hands shaking. Ada followed the admirals as they rushed outside to the elevator. “Cherry, whoever sent you those Union files, send the decrypted ones back. Now.”

  Done. Outgoing signals appears to be a great variety of numerical values and associated labels. Some may be best interpreted as coordinates - relative differences between them match relative differences between astral bodies and ships in this galactic substructure. Incoming signals are brief and contain very simple sets of numbers, a few of which are also coordinates.

  “Felisha! Izha!” Ada squee
zed into the elevator with them, and Sanako followed her into the cramped space. “They’re transmitting coordinates. Lots of other things, but also things in this star system. They’re getting signals as well as receiving them.”

  The admirals looked at her. “How do you know this?”

  Sanako looked frantic. “What are you talking about?”

  “My ship decrypted the Haint transmissions.”

  Sanako paled at the word Haint . Felisha scowled. “In a few hours?”

  “Less. We don’t know what they mean.”

  “Coordinates for which objects?”

  Cherry’s voice spoke directly from Ada’s suit, startling the others. “As best I can calculate: the star, its planets, their satellites, and all spacecraft currently transiting through the system. Positional and orbital metrics.”

  Izha growled. “This is a nightmare.”

  They stepped out of the elevator and crossed into the bridge, a vast and brightly lit space with huge two-dimensional displays hanging in a circle above a vast three-dimensional display showing the entire Chang’e system.

  Ada suddenly remembered the bridge of the Watersmoke, and through that her friends. Cherry, warn the Watersmoke to get to the jumpgate as fast as possible. Tell them what’s happening.

  Acknowledged.

  The two-dimensional displays all showed the same thing. Ada looked up, not sure what she was seeing. Chang’e Major was a great sphere of creamy white clouds and storms, but on one edge of the planet its circular silhouette seemed to have ruptured. Like it was bleeding white blood into space.

  One of the displays provided a clearer view of the disturbance. Something bulbous and segmented was rising from the atmosphere, swathed in white; alongside it were others, smaller or further, dozens of white streaks jutting from the edge of the planet. The white, though… something was wrong about the colour. It looked smokey, like the thing was dragging a cloud around itself as it emerged from the atmosphere, except the cloud itself was glowing. It was slow, but to break the silhouette of a planet in any visible way it must be massive.

  Suddenly Izha was screaming. “What the fuck are you all doing? Why hasn’t anyone called for reinforcements?! This is a state of emergency, get the presidency on the line now and give them a live feed! Put out a call for ships! Evacuate Chang’e! We have to evacuate the moons!”

  Ada stared at Felisha, who had grown a shade or two paler. She bit her lip before speaking. “That’s a Haint?”

  “The Haint wormship.”

  “ The wormship? At least there’s only one. What is it?”

  Felisha looked her straight in the eyes, eyes wide and afraid. “It’s a jumpgate and it glasses planets. Everybody dies. We were never able to destroy it, it just… disappeared.”

  Ada looked back to the displays, to the languid crawl of the wormship out of the atmosphere. She wondered just how hard the Union had bothered to look if the thing had somehow hidden inside one of their own planets for centuries. Then again, with their level of technology, it wasn’t impossible they had simply never noticed.

  “It’s on the opposite side from the moon.” Ada’s eyes flicked across diagrams and displays. “It’s so huge acceleration and turning will take forever, right? That’ll buy us time.”

  Felisha shook her head. “Not nearly enough. This… we couldn’t do it then. Now?”

  Ada waited, but apparently that was it. “Cherry? Do you have access to their historical data on the Haints? Respond so they can hear you.”

  Cherry’s voice drew the attention of the admirals and a few of the officers on the bridge. “I have access to public records; I have chosen not to break classified military encryption yet for diplomatic reasons. From historical observations, I estimate approximately sixty hours before the ship is in firing range of the primary Chang’e moon.”

  “Six… sixty.” Izha was frantically shouting into communicators, all composure gone. Activity buzzed across the bridge, and Ada turned to find Sanako paralyzed by the sight on the screens.

  “Sanako? Hey. Hey, look at me.”

  “Ada - they’re going to kill everyone.” She looked cold. “ Everyone. ”

  “Not me.” The truth was, Ada could escape if she needed to. Cherry was apparently a much faster ship than she could have anticipated. But what good would that do anyone in the Union? And what if these Haints came for Earth?

  Cherry? Why is it suddenly appearing now?

  Cherry’s response was discrete, reaching only her mind. Given its current velocity, I estimate it likely started accelerating within a few minutes of my entering this system. This matches Union records of Haint transmissions - they dramatically spiked as soon as I arrived, first outgoing then incoming.

  Ada felt a cold knot in her stomach. So… it’s attacking because I brought you here.

  The data only shows correlation. But this is one candidate explanation, considering the previous spike in Haint transmissions occurred after Earth transmissions first reached Mir. It may be the Haints feel threatened by communications between Earth and the Union.

  Gods, this was all her fault.

  Some of the displays around the ceiling flickered suddenly, displaying images of the presidents of the Union, the human Alan Niu and the mirran Jesst Serresk. Both were staring dumbly at the screen, looking utterly unprepared. After a moment, Jesst cleared her throat, speaking loudly and clearly.

  “My fellow colonials. What you’re seeing now is real, live footage from Chang’e. That is the Haint wormship. The Union remembers its history. We all know what this means.” Her ears were flat. “From this moment onward, we are fighting for our lives.”

  Alan Niu picked up. “We are putting out the order to immediately and completely evacuate Chang’e and Yutu. We need every ship in the Union making top speed for that system right now. Government will reimburse fuel costs for all civilian craft making the trip. Barring critical military missions, any spacecraft found to be doing anything other than evacuating Chang’e will be immediately commandeered by Union Starfleet. Attempts to resist commandeering will be dealt with using the most expedient means, including lethal force.”

  Jesst continued. “It will take everything we have to evacuate, but the simple truth is we will not be able to save everyone. There are eight hundred million people in that system, and we believe the wormship will enter firing range within sixty hours. There are no good choices. We have no justice or hope to offer. All we have are ships. Every ship we can find.”

  Alan wavered a little, looking down at his hands for a moment. “We will commit the entire Starfleet, including all SysSec forces, to holding off the Haint threat at Chang’e for as long as we can. We have grown stronger in the centuries since the last war, but we can make no promises. Parliament will begin discussing options for protecting the remaining Union worlds… up to and including deactivation of the jumpgate system. If we...”

  He trailed off, and Jesst looked over at him, concerned, and reached out to take his hand. She continued for him. “If we decide to deactivate the jumpgates, we cannot allow time for families to reunite or relocate. After the evacuation of Chang’e, the survival of our two species, of our one civilization, is our sole priority. We are truly sorry.”

  The transmission ended, just like that, and everyone on the bridge was silent for long seconds. Ada could sense the tension in the air, and she knew she shouldn’t mock this, but there was something about this was that simply unbelievable to her. It was a weird-looking, cloudy thing emerging from the bowels of a planet. It looked fairly large, yes, but it was still a ship. Union firepower might not be the best in the universe, but it was still just one ship!

  Besides, they had Cherry now. Everything was going to work out fine. She found her hands shaking a little, and clenched them tighter. Nothing was unstoppable.

  Cherry, get ready to fly. We’re going to fight.

  Understood.

  Sanako was still gaping wide-eyed and terrified at the displays. Before leaving, Ada reached ou
t to put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. I can handle this.”

  The ensign simply stared at her, shaking her head back and forth.

  Chapter 16

  S hips were already streaming through the Chang’e jumpgate towards the moons. Ada could feel them dripping into Cherry’s awareness, one by one, drops of rain onto the surface of a lake too deep and too unnaturally still to be anything but dangerous. Ada skipped through the nothing towards the Watersmoke , which was already turning around to face the moon again. So much for escape.

  “Ada Liu.” The transmission was coming from Felisha. “Is there anything on or around Earth that might have provoked the Haints? Any superweapons, any strange technologies?”

  She pursed her lips. “ Everything on Earth is strange to you. Cherry says she jumped here from Earth in nine hours, which apparently you people can’t do. Can the Haints?”

  Cherry chimed in. “Historical evidence suggests Haint ships are not capable of warp travel. The wormship likely began approaching Union space at sublight speeds decades or centuries before it actually arrived.”

  Felisha’s voice frosted with unease at conversing with an AI. “That’s how they got between our systems. The wormship is a mobile jumpgate; it works on the same principles ours do. If your ship actually can make warp jumps between arbitrary points without an existing wormhole or gate, that’s an incredible tactical advantage.”

  “ You obviously never knew Earth was doing this - did the Haints?” Ada watched the planet grow closer. “Cherry, I thought the gods said you were in storage before they gave you to me. There must be more.”

  Cherry’s response was not encouraging. “There are no others. As I have said in the past, I was an experimental prototype - full production of my line never took place. I have at various points conducted scans in the Sol system; there are automated post-Armistice battleships orbiting Mars and patrolling the Earth-Jupiter corridor, and as you remember, drifters on the ring fly a variety of craft. None of them incorporate the latest technologies used in my design. They have no warp capabilities.”