The armor and fins were repaired within a short period. The molecular robots in the armor went dormant. Hawking ordered the little repair robots back into the bay, where they lined up in rows and columns like little crab-soldiers. Yuina took the ship slowly up through the atmosphere. Space was littered with wrecks.
They easily found the floating chunks of the Fire Scorpion. It had many weapons, including rotary cannons. Steo wondered aloud how they would remove the equipment from the lumps of wreckage.
Renosha volunteered. “If you draw close enough and hold the piece steady with the tractor beam, I could go get them.”
“You would freeze,” Steo said. Modern robots like Governor had liquicore arms that could freeze.
“No I wouldn’t,” Renosha said.
Glaikis looked up from her console and observed Renosha. “That’s right. Look at him. He limbs aren’t liquicore like most robots. He’s made of bundles of filaments. They wouldn’t be affected by cold.”
“What about your Valence processor?” Steo asked. “Can those freeze?”
Hawking said, “Not mine, Captain. Mine has its own warming element that can remain in operation for 3.82 standard years.”
Renosha said indignantly, “All robots with Valence processors have warming elements, including me.”
Steo said, “Good enough. Hawking, find the tail of the Scorpion. Yuina, pull us close while he gets ready.”
Since Renosha was basically humanoid in form, they got him into a space suit.
Looking him over, Glaikis said, “This is eerie. Robots aren’t supposed to fit in these.”
“Please don’t cut off my legs for social convention, Glaikis,” Renosha said. She rolled her eyes.
They went to the airlock and Renosha got in. He looked human except for the chrome head and beard of cables.
“Maybe you can’t freeze, but how are you going to get over there?” Steo asked.
“Fly.” Renosha shut the door.
They returned to the bridge. A red and black arc of metal stood off the starboard side – the detached tail of the Fire Scorpion. Even just the tail was larger than the whole of the Eye of Orion. Bits of metal debris floated around it. A dead gunner hung next to it, his head still connected by cables.
Yuina held the tail in place with the tractor beam. They watched Renosha fly slowly between the two ships.
“Did you give him a comfort harness?” Yuina asked.
“The lighten-burden discs in a comfort harness aren’t strong enough for that,” Glaikis said.
Steo said, “He’s flying. He could always fly. That must be how he caught up to me in Zivang. His body has LBDs built into it.”
They watched as Renosha reached the Scorpion tail. His voice came over the ship-wide comm. “I am at the wreck. The weapons in this section are mostly undamaged, since the piece was broken off at the base. Hawking, can you transmit where a suitable replacement is?”
Hawking communicated with Renosha during the operation. In the bridge they saw a bright light near Renosha flicker for several minutes. The robots discussed connectors, ports and technical specs. Finally he announced he had the weapon. To everyone’s surprise, he flew slowly back with it. They opened the lower bay to release the repair robots, and watched as they scuttled up to attach the gun to its mount.
Renosha went back to the tail while Yuina and Hawking tested the rotary cannon’s movements.
“There are missile munitions here in the tail,” Renosha said over the comm.
Soon a line of them safely drifted to the Eye of Orion, where they were taken inside and loaded.
Eventually Renosha returned to the ship and Yuina pushed the tail away.
Steo said over the comm, “Everyone please meet in the holobridge.”
While they waited for everyone to arrive, Cyrus sat down next to Yuina. “Hey Yuina,” he said with a wink.
“What’s wrong with your face.”
“My face?”
“The twitch in your eye. Is that a sign of mental fatigue in humans?”
“No, it’s a wink. We call it flirting.”
She stared at him blankly. “First of all you should know you disgust me.”
“Why?” he protested.
“You have female parts!”
“Cyrus has what?” Glaikis said as she entered and pulled out a floating chair.
“Female parts,” Yuina said casually.
Now it was Cyrus’s turn to have a blank face.
“Nipples,” Yuina said. “Dr. Spierk did a bad job because he made you with nipples.”
“Oh my,” Glaikis said. “You have a lot to learn, dear. All humans have nipples.”
“What? Why?”
Cyrus shrugged. Glaikis laughed.
“Ugh. I’d heard that humans weren’t evolved.”
“Aren’t tirrians and humans 99% similar?” Cyrus nudged his chair closer to Yuina’s. “Maybe sometime we could learn more about each other’s species.”
“Besides the fact that I think you’re useless and disgusting, I know one thing: we aren’t compatible.”
Cyrus smiled. “Don’t say no so fast.”
“Do you have spines on your sex organ?”
Cyrus leaned back. “Pardon?”
“Tirrian males have barbs on their sex organ. Do you have those?”
“Ouch! No!”
“Then you couldn’t possibly satisfy a tirrian woman, you malformed freak.”
Glaikis raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think she’s lying.” She sighed. “For once she’s not lying and it’s the one time I didn’t want to know the truth.”
With a shiver, Cyrus slid his chair away from the tirrian.
Governor came up from the quarters. They were all happy to see that he was functioning again.
Hawking entered and Renosha followed. He decided to stay in the tight-fitting space suit, and threw his cloak over his shoulder.
Steo came in and thanked everyone for joining.
“Dr. Spierk is dead. The bounty on him is still good. Admiral Slaught and his ship are destroyed. Our original mission is done. Done. Anyone who wants to, may leave now. I understand if you’ve had enough. That ship I was working on can still be fixed and get you back home, wherever that is.”
Nobody spoke up. They felt they had already established their motives. It was understood.
He continued. “Then we go on. The Eye of Orion is fully repaired. We have a chance to put a stop to a galactic war. The AndroVault has already left to attack another system. That will be the last we see of it in the Percaic spiral arm. After that it will go to the Tarium spiral arm and launch a crusade.
My plan is to catch up to the AndroVault and stop it. And I do mean stop it, stop the ship. I don’t mean to kill two million people. We can destroy its engines and leave it near a planet fit for colonization. This may be the last voyage of the Eye of Orion. I expect it’s us or them this time.”
He looked around the room and saw no disapproval. “We leave in one hour.”
“Starship traffic in the system is picking up,” Hawking said.
“Do we have the course of the AndroVault?”
“Yes sir,” Cyrus said. “It looks like the virus is operating.”
The virus had infected the generation ship’s computer and sent out tiny graviton pulses, indicating the ship’s movements. The crew cross-referenced that with Glaikis’s estimates. They saw the destination: the Veert Commonality. Yuina pulled closer to the bright star at the center of the solar system and Hawking used the new directional function of the graviton engines to accelerate collection. In no time they had enough energy to make the jump.
Once Glaikis had the course laid in, Yuina said, “Captain Steo, do we have um … permission to go fast?”
“Yes. Take us to the Veert Commonality.”
They took off at faster-than-light speed, leaving Insolent Stray behind.
CHAPTER 31
Captain
The trip took several hours at high speed, d
uring which Steo worked out a plan of attack. They had to assume the fleet wasn’t ragged remnants, but had repaired and recruited. Destroying the whole fleet wasn’t the goal anymore. Steo wanted to disable the AndroVault from the inside. Cyrus would be necessary since only he knew the layout and might not be immediately recognizable.
When they arrived in the system, they stopped on the far outskirts. The star was a rare blue supergiant and produced a tremendous amount of illumination. The solar system had dozens of planets and countless natural satellites. Meteors and asteroid belts made the star chart look cluttered in comparison to other systems.
The Veert Commonality’s main planet, Lazuria 27, was the seventh from the blue star. According to what little they knew, it had mining operations and warehouses. Its gravity and atmosphere were standard, with large continents and oceans. The planet had rings and a large moon with many smaller satellites following it like a tail.
The population was about 20 million people of every species but they were scattered far and wide. They supported different merchant princes operating in the Percaic spiral arm.
Accordingly, each territory had its own defenses. The purpose of such forces was only to drive off pirates: small bands of marauding predators, not large invasions. The Veert Commonality had no fear of knight-mercenary fleets. In fact, the merchant princes were often the ones behind attacks to wipe out pirate bases.
Defenses included three space stations, each with a few cutters armed with simple guns and missiles. Like Kurzia Station, they often relied on the mere presence of docked ships to scare off pirates.
When the Eye of Orion appeared, the crew waited ten minutes to get read-outs.
“It seems a massive space battle is raging far and wide across the Veert Commonality,” Hawking said. “The other two habitable planets, numbers five and twelve, are blockaded by many small ships.”
“I thought this system was well-defended?” Yuina asked.
Cyrus said, “Against pirate attacks, even the rare pirate squadron, yes, but there are dozens of ships in an organized fleet here. This isn’t a hit-and-run raid.”
“Some ships are leaving the system,” Hawking said.
“Probably ones that were docked and are now fleeing.” Steo scrutinized the front panel’s wild arrangement of icons. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what,” Yuina said.
“The AndroVault. I see the other ships but not that one. It should stand out.”
“There are no signs of the generation ship in the solar system yet, Captain,” Hawking said.
Renosha said, “Perhaps it is in hiding, as it did in the attack on Kurzia Station.”
They watched for a bit. They could see the destroyer Scrag was having a field day. It was much more powerful than the cutters, like a wolf among sheep. On the Scrag’s side, as far as they could tell, were 14 other ships. Some they recognized from the battle at Insolent Stray. They had been disabled during that fight, then quickly repaired and rejoined the crusade. This space battle seemed piecemeal. Steo wondered what destruction the powerful Fire Scorpion would have wrought here.
Signals were delayed because they were far away, but they saw one of the stations get captured. Its nine cutters were quickly crewed and launched, joining the Scrag.
“Captain, I have information from Lazuria 27,” Hawking said. “There are rapid, secure communications commonly detected in a surface battle. Smoke and flashes also suggest fighting.”
“If they landed their raiding parties on Lazuria 27 from the AndroVault, where did the ship go?” Glaikis asked.
Steo said, “It’s a generation ship. It was built for a long space flight and then to stop at its destination, releasing the people onto a planet.”
There was silence.
“It landed.”
Cyrus said, “That thing? It’s huge!”
Hawking said, “A quick scan of records from our previous encounters proves Captain Steo right: the AndroVault is able to enter atmosphere and land.”
None of the crew had ever seen a ship touch ground. Graviton technology meant any ship could hover an inch above grass without bending a blade.
“That’s why the space fleet is so chaotic. They don’t have the central command of Admiral Slaught guiding them, so the AndroVault landed and just let them fly around plundering,” Renosha said.
“How are we going to get through all of that? This sort of changes the plan, doesn’t it?” Yuina asked.
Steo ordered, “Hawking, send two probes into the system. One to orbit Lazuria 27, one to fly around and collect data on the battle.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“There may be one benefit to this. If the AndroVault landed on the surface and we destroy its engines, this campaign might end here.”
Soon Hawking got back data from the probes. The AndroVault was on the surface of Lazuria 27. The colossal ship had a flat bottom and could land, opening bays to disgorge tens of thousands of troops. Fighting raged everywhere on the planet. Several settlements were already destroyed. They had started with orbital bombardment.
There was something unusual about the AndroVault’s signal, though. Hawking calculated that its shield power had increased exponentially, making it immune to all but a coordinated, direct nuclear attack. A nearby power plant proved the answer: the AndroVault had landed near the plant and connected its power systems, giving it tremendous output. In addition, small escort ships surrounded it and they could shoot down any incoming missile.
Steo said, “Given everything, here’s a change of plans. Cyrus and Glaikis, prepare to board the AndroVault. Your mission is to destroy their engines and e-cores. A tachyon subengine big enough to dematerialize that ship has got to be rare, and hopefully another one is nowhere near this sector of the galaxy.”
Cyrus said with a wry grin, “Normally I don’t need assistance for a landing party, but you are the captain.”
Glaikis rolled her eyes. “That’s fine. What about the escorts?”
Steo said, “We need those escorts to pull away. I’ll take care of that. Renosha and Yuina, you’ll come with me. We won’t harm them unless necessary.”
Yuina said, “I’ve got a better plan. I’ll stay here and provide support.” She turned away from him, happy with herself and thinking that was the end of it.
“I need a pilot so you’ll escort Renosha and me on this mission,” Steo said. “We’re going to get some skimmers and use them rather than the Eye of Orion.”
Yuina’s shoulder hair tingled. Raised hackles on a tirrian meant confrontation. “You want to run in front of armed escorts and just dodge them? That’s a stupid idea.”
Her chair spun around, out of her control. She looked around, baffled at the cause. It stopped facing Steo.
“Pilot Yuina, if you want to be a member of this crew, remember that I’m the captain. You can be pilot of the Eye of Orion and follow my directions, or you can abandon your post and go to your quarters. We can find somewhere safe to drop you off.” Steo hoped no one knew that his heart was pounding and he was sweating. He could tell her temperature was rising too.
Yuina kept eye contact with him. Her leg jittered. “I’m not used to taking orders from males.”
“Too damned bad,” Steo replied. He kept a calm demeanor but didn’t back down. He remembered that no one knew what tirrian males looked like because they never left their homeworld. So there was some dynamic between tirrian women and men. Maybe it was a matriarchal society.
“This may be a new experience to you,” Steo said. “While you’re aboard my ship, you obey my orders. Discussion is fine. Outright disobedience tells me you don’t want to be a member of this crew anymore. Is that the case, Yuina?” Then he had the strange sensation that he knew what she would do next. She would test him.
Yuina glanced around the room. Everyone was facing the argument but said nothing. “You need me. I’m the best thing you’ve got for a pilot.”
Steo knew to immediately address that. “Everyone has a pa
rt to play, but no one is indispensable. Some day you can fly your own ship, but right now you’re flying mine.”
She didn’t immediately reply so he pressed. “That chair is for the pilot of my ship, the ship I bought, named and command. Are you that pilot?”
She broke eye contact and nodded.
“Before we go forward, and into danger again, I need to know where you stand,” he said. He was nervous that she would lose her temper and quit. It would be a loss of an excellent pilot as well as a friend, but he calculated that she wouldn’t.
Yuina said, “I’d like to remain as pilot of your ship.”
“Good. I accept.”
“Welcome aboard,” Cyrus said with a wide grin.
“What about myself and Governor, Captain? What are your orders?” Hawking said.
“I need you here coordinating communications and keeping the ship out of danger. Governor has his orders already.”
Relieved and ready to get back onto subject, Glaikis asked, “How will we get inside that shield? Even our missiles couldn’t penetrate it. Anything that could bust that shield would obliterate what’s inside it.”
Cyrus said, “Glaikis, I’m going to show you something.”
She looked up at him. There was a big height difference. “What,” she said bluntly.
“We’re going to get inside that shield the easiest way imaginable.”
“Luck?”
“No, they’re going to let us in.”
“Oh no …” she said.
“Oh yes. Prepare yourself. I’m going to show you what they’ll later call … the Cyrus Gambit.”
“Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say,” Glaikis said.
“With my charm and wit, I’m going to get us captured. Then we’ll escape.”
“By the dark nebula,” Glaikis swore. “Do you understand there are mercenaries over there? They don’t take prisoners! Maybe the rabble on the AndroVault can be confused but you haven’t spent enough time around mercs. They kill enemies outright.”
“It’s okay, Glaikis.” Cyrus patted her on the shoulder. “I know what I’m doing. Indeed one might say I was born for this.”
She slapped her face with her hand.
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