The Messenger Box Set: Books 1-6

by J. N. Chaney

  Dash powered up the Archetype and shot off toward the mysterious Verity construct, the Swift falling into formation at his side.

  As they cautiously sidled up to the ringed whatever, Dash and Leira kept Sentinel and Tybalt analyzing the incoming data, trying to make sense of what they were seeing. Neither of the AIs had been able to offer much useful insight, though. They could only speak to what was already evident—it consisted of three rings, each almost a kilometer across, lined up along a central hub that bulged in the middle. Spokes connected the rings to the hub. One end of the hub flared into a drive module, while the other seemed to be tipped by a sensor cluster. There were point-defense batteries, which opened fire on the two mechs as they closed; several carefully aimed dark-lance shots took care of those.

  Now, Dash and Leira hung outside an airlock in vac suits, waiting to see if Tybalt and Sentinel could hack into the strange ship’s systems and open the lock up. Both kept pulse-guns ready. Both also sported new, prototype body armor Custodian had developed at the Forge—tactical breastplates, forearm- and lower-leg protection, all made from a layered carbon nanotube-honeycombed ceramic composite. It weighed almost nothing but, according to the AI, should be able to stop a pulse-gun shot or a projectile from a slug-rifle, even at point blank range.

  The downside was that any given part of the armor could likely only stop one direct hit, so it would degrade with use. Still, it was far better than absolutely nothing but fragile vac suits or tactical coveralls; both of those contained some ballistic weave, but it wasn’t enough to deal with anything more than fragments or ricochets. Dash wished they’d had it during the fierce, close-quarters fighting in the crashed Golden ship on Gulch.

  The airlock slid open.

  “I guess they managed to get in,” Leira said.

  “We did,” Tybalt replied. “However, security protocols have engaged to prevent us from accessing helm, nav, and drive functions. It is unclear how long it will take to circumvent them.”

  “One step at a time,” Dash said, and pushed himself into the airlock. Gravity immediately pulled him down to the deck. Leira followed, the outer airlock door slid closed, and the lock began to pressurize.

  “This might have been a candidate for that knock-out gas weapon on the Archetype,” Leira said. “Last time we did this, everyone was asleep, thanks to that.” She hefted her pulse gun. “I kind of miss that, all the bad guys snoozing away.”

  “Sentinel said it was too compartmentalized,” Dash replied. “And I’d rather not go punching holes in the hull until we know what this is all about.”

  “Okay, but it’s just the two of us, and this is a big ship.”

  Dash frowned. She was right. Sentinel had detected only a few signals that indicated life-forms aboard, but there could be any number of bots and other non-living things that might hurt them.

  “Sentinel, call up the Horse Nebula. They should still be close by. Let’s get them aboard this thing, too.”

  “Actually, Benzel seems to have anticipated this. The Horse Nebula is ten minutes out and closing to assist. He further recommends you hold your position until they arrive.”

  Dash glanced at Leira. “I do not regret making that man our offensive commander, even if he is a pirate—yeah, I know, privateer.”

  Dash and Leira waited for the Horse Nebula to coast to a halt and disgorge two squads of Gentle Friends. Once they were aboard, they began making their careful way through the massive Verity ship.

  The pulse-gun fire died as the last Verity fell, hit by a shot from one of the Gentle Friends. He peered back around the bulkhead, saw no other opposition, then looked back.

  “Okay, looks like we’re in the clear again,” he said. “Let’s keep moving.”

  They resumed their way, Dash leading one squad of the Gentle Friends, Leira the other. Over the course of an hour, they’d cleared the hub, taking control of the bridge and engineering against spirited resistance. The Verity crewing this ship weren’t numerous, though, and didn’t even seem to be soldiers. They shot wildly, without fire discipline, and quickly fell to the accurate, sustained fire of their Cygnus attackers.

  Dash stopped at the sight of a massive blast door just ahead. Based on how far they’d come along the spoke, this must be the entrance to the ring. “Sentinel, doors ahead. Can you—”

  The doors parted and slid back. “Okay, I guess you can,” Dash muttered, then started forward. He reached the doors, stopped, and peeked inside.

  A forest?

  That’s certainly what it seemed to be. Dash saw trees, shrubs, smaller plants, some flowering, and beyond those, what looked like rows of crops. He knew some of the plants, but others were entirely unfamiliar—possibly alien, but Dash was no botanist, so they might be perfectly common plants he just didn’t recognize.

  “It’s a farming ship,” Leira said.

  Dash nodded. “That it is. And that might make it the best prize we’ve taken so far.”

  “Uh, the Forge is producing way more food than we need now, as it is.”

  “It is. But I want to change that. I want to keep bringing more people into our cause, while still keeping us as self-sufficient as possible.” He nodded. “And this is an excellent start.”

  For a moment, a vision flashed through Dash’s mind. He saw the Forge, surrounded by farming and hab ships—the Cygnus Realm, but entirely space-born, dependent on no planets, and free to move where it needed or wanted to. He nodded again, this time at the mental image.

  We’re going to make that happen, he thought. And it begins right here.

  Clearing the rings, which were full of vegetation and, therefore, had no shortage of places to hide, was going to take time. But it didn’t really matter, because Sentinel and Tybalt had determined that breaking the encryption on the helm, nav, and drive was going to take many more hours, possibly days. So Dash decided on a different approach.

  “Muller here,” the voice rang across the comm. “What can I do for you, Dash?”

  Muller, the Aquarian captain commanding the Comet, had gotten his damaged ship under control, and now kept station as cover for the Herald and Snow Leopard as they rigged up the captured Verity ships for towing back to the Forge.

  “I think it’s safe to say you Aquarians have a lot of experience with big engineering projects, especially ones involving rings,” Dash said, running a gloved hand along the bark of a tree laden with some reddish-yellow fruit.

  “Well, it’s not my particular area of expertise, but yeah, I think you could definitely say that. Why?”

  “Because I’d like you folks to take charge of recovering this Verity farming ship and getting it back to the Forge. I think it’s a job beyond the rest of us.”

  “I’ll talk to Al’Bijea about it, sure, and get back to you.”

  “Excellent. Dash out.”

  “Actually, the Aquarians might be even more at home with this than you think,” Leira said, walking up beside Dash.

  “How so?”

  She made a follow me gesture. Bemused, Dash did just that, walking with her to the opening to the spoke that led to the bulged portion of the hub. She pointed at something enclosed in what looked like reflective foil, with hoses and conduits extending from it.

  “That’s a comet, or what’s left of one, anyway. According to Tybalt, the Verity are extracting water, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, all sorts of things from it. And apparently they’re doing it with about twice the efficiency of whatever methods the Aquarians are using to harvest comets.”

  “Oh, Al’Bijea is going to like that—”

  Something slammed into Dash’s back, knocking the breath from him. He gasped and dropped to his knees; Leira tackled him into some bushes.

  “Shit—Dash, are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” He winced. “Holy crap, what was that?”

  “Pulse-gun shot. Came from that way.” She pointed. “Looks like Custodian’s new armor works—thankfully.”

  Dash nodded and pulled himself around to a pron
e firing position. Thankfully indeed. Without that armor, the pulse-gun hit probably would have been fatal.

  “Do you see anyone?” he asked.

  Leira shook her head. “No.”

  “Dash, Blue One here. Did we just hear shooting?”

  It was the leader of the Gentle Friend’s squad accompanying him. He told her where he was, and to hold firm wherever they were, because they seemed to have a sniper on their hands.

  “Got him,” Leira said, her faceplate lowered back in place. “On thermal. Fifty meters, just to the right of that big tree.”

  “I have him,” Dash said, his own thermal imaging active. He aimed the pulse-gun at the glowing shape and fired. Shots came snapping back, but they passed well overhead.

  “There’s another one, five meters to the right of the first,” he said.

  “Got him.” Leira took careful aim and fired, then she saw one of the thermal signatures stagger and drop.

  “Good shooting,” Dash said, firing again then crawling to a new location. He saw a third Verity, this time in the open, trying to move to a new firing position of its own. He aimed, tracking the slender, pale figure, then fired. He hit, the Verity went down to its knees, and a second shot finished it off. By then, Leira had taken out the first one.

  “I see some more, further back,” she said. “If you move right, I can—”

  “Hang on,” Dash said. “Hold your fire.”

  He could see the other figures without thermal imaging because they were moving into the open—with their hands up.

  All Verity must die, no exceptions. He aimed—

  “Dash, those aren’t Verity.”

  He lowered the muzzle and sighted over the top of the weapon.

  No, they definitely weren’t.

  Dash watched as the Gentle Friends made sure their captives were unarmed. He hadn’t expected they would be—grubby and dishevelled, with the haunted hope of those who were only just beginning to realize they were no longer in danger, they’d hardly come across as a threat. But he could almost hear Ragsdale making some flat statement to the effect that everyone was a possible threat, until it was certain they weren’t.

  The Gentle Friends’ squad leader turned to Dash and nodded. “They’re clean.”

  “Well, not really,” Leira said, lifting a brow at the filthy captives.

  “Uh, you know what I mean.”

  She just smiled, then turned to Dash. “Okay, so they’re clean then—and human. Tybalt confirms it. They scan as fully human.”

  Dash studied them. “Okay, we’re not going to treat you as outright captives,” he said to the small throng of grimy figures. “But we’ve had enough experience with the Golden and the Verity to know that they have agents who could be—well, anyone.”

  “Who are you?” a woman asked.

  “We’re from the Cygnus Realm,” Dash replied. “We’re devoted to the destruction of the Verity and their masters, the Golden.”

  “Never heard of these Golden,” a man said. “The Verity though—yeah, if you’re planning to destroy them, then we are definitely on your side.”

  Dash walked up to the man. He, like his fellows, had a heavy collar clamped around his neck. Dash pointed at it. “I take it those collars are meant to keep you in line.”

  The man nodded but kept his eyes on the ground. “I got a plasma burn once on my arm—a leak from a conduit. I never thought there could be worse pain than that. But there is, and it comes from these damned collars.”

  “Sentinel, do you and Tybalt have access to anything that might help us get the damned collars off these people?” Dash asked.

  In answer, the collars suddenly uttered a shrill tone—then popped open. Their bearers stared for a moment, then ripped them free and threw them away like live explosives.

  “Thank you,” the man said, his voice choking.

  “Look at me,” Dash said.

  The man reluctantly raised his eyes. “You don’t need to avert your eyes, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

  “The Verity—”

  “Are dead. And you’re free. Got it?”

  The man nodded. Tears rolled down his face.

  “Who are you? And where are you from?”

  The man wiped his eyes and face. “I’m Donner. Donner Alban. We’re from a planet called Burrow.”

  Dash stared. “Really? We were…just there.” He glanced at Leira. “I mean, what are the odds?”

  Fifty-fifty, they were either from Burrow or they weren’t, he heard Sentinel say. The thought made him smile, which made Leira narrow her eyes at him.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll tell you another time.”

  “Who are you people?” Donner asked. “And how did you defeat these bloody Verity? They’ve got tech like we’ve never seen before.”

  “We’ve got tech like you’ve never seen before, too,” Dash said. “But we also have something they don’t.”

  “What?”

  “People. Damned good people, motivated and smart.” Dash looked at Donner and his companions. “And we could use more of them. Can I assume you’re not exactly fans of the Verity?”

  Donner answered by turning and spitting in the direction of the nearest Verity corpse. “I only hope it died slow and in pain, because that’s what they do to the people they take.”

  “Are there others like you aboard?” Leira asked.

  “We don’t know. We’ve seen others come and go. We’ve seen a few after the Verity have—done things to them.”

  Dash put a hand on Donner’s shoulder. “That’s behind you. You’re under the protection of the Cygnus Realm now.”

  “You said you need people?”

  Dash nodded.

  “How can we help?”

  Dash watched on the Archetype’s heads-up as the Comet took station beside the Verity farming ship, which they’d named the Greenbelt. The Comet’s crew had finished securing the big farming platform, and had contacted Al’Bijea, who’d dispatched a team to work out how best to get the massive construct back to the Forge.

  They still couldn’t light the drive or access the helm functions; the AIs said that the Verity had protected the Greenbelt’s systems with encryption that was an AI, one that constantly morphed and changed, making it theoretically impossible to decrypt. It seemed the Verity had upped their cybersecurity game, which gave them another good reason to get the Greenbelt back to the Forge intact, besides taking advantage of its prodigious food output. They had to study and figure out how to circumvent this elusive, new cyber-protection. The Aquarians, therefore, would leverage their mega-engineering expertise and take on the task of hauling the big farming ship back to the Forge.

  “Dash,” Benzel said. “The Snow Leopard and the tug drones are away, heading back to the Forge. Meantime, we’ve finished working out a defensive plan to protect the Greenbelt and the Aquarians while they work on her. It’s based mostly on mines and drones, like you asked. Custodian figures we can have it all set up in about two days, so I’d like to keep the Herald, the Comet, and the Slipwing on station here until then.”

  “You’re going to live with Amy for two days. Good luck with that.”

  “I heard that,” Amy said. “And you can bet I’m sticking my tongue out at you.”

  Dash chuckled, but it quickly faded. “What about Donner and the other ex-slaves?”

  “They’ve all decided to stay and help out. They want to do whatever they can to hit back at the Verity.” Benzel paused. “There’s some serious hatred there.”

  “Do you blame them?”

  “Not one damned bit.”

  “Still, keep an eye on them. Just pretend Ragsdale’s looking over your shoulder.”

  “Now there’s a scary thought.”

  Dash chuckled again then prepared to head back to the Forge with Leira. But his good humor immediately faded again as he thought about Benzel’s words.

  There’s some serious hatred there.

  There was some s
erious hatred here, too—more, it seemed, every time Dash encountered the Verity. It made him wonder just how much capacity for hatred he had.

  Something told him the Bright, the Verity, and all the rest of them would answer that question for him.

  7

  The Greenbelt had seemed so huge—until the Aquarians managed to get it back to the Forge. Now, in comparison to the massive station, it looked tiny. Still, Freya had, after about two minutes aboard, announced that it could provide as much food output as the Forge could, at least at the station’s current power levels. It just confirmed to Dash that the idea of an independent, space-borne civilization might not be so far-fetched after all. One thing the universe did not have in short supply was comets, and the Greenbelt was, it seemed, supremely efficient at extracting resources from them.

  “My people are almost bouncing with excitement,” Al’Bijea had said. “Personally, I find it rather humbling. I thought we had mastered the engineering needed to exploit cometary resources. Now, it turns out we’re far from having mastered it. The system the Verity uses is almost one hundred percent efficient, compared to our sixty percent or so.”

  “Well, you’re welcome,” Dash had replied. “Feel free to steal as much of it as you want.”

  “At this point, I think you’d have trouble getting my people away from it at gunpoint.”

  Dash had laughed and come away from the holo-meeting in a genuinely buoyant mood. Al’Bijea had, so far, walked up to the edge of entering a formal alliance with the Cygnus Realm, but hadn’t yet stepped across. Dash got the sense the man was hedging his bets a bit—he was a cagey businessman, after all, and probably wanted to get something more of an alliance than just an opportunity to fight the Bright—but simply offering over the Verity comet-harvesting tech gratis had definitely nudged Al’Bijea’s attitude in a favorable way. The fact that they could use liberated Verity tech to do it was just a delicious benefit.

  Now, he walked along a path through the Greenbelt, Viktor at his side. Freya, who was as excited as Al’Bijea had been about the farming ship, had just briefed them on her latest finds. After a first, cursory pass through the plants and crops on board, she’d said she recognized about eighty percent of them, and none of them were unsafe for human consumption. The other twenty percent were new to her and would require more study.