by J. N. Chaney
“So, an extra seventy or so? We can’t fit them aboard our ships?”
“We can physically pack them in, sure,” Benzel replied. “But Wei-Ping ran the numbers—three times, in fact. The air cyclers on both ships just can’t handle that many people. We’re looking at some serious carbon dioxide buildup by the time we get back to the Forge.”
Dash just stared for a moment, his mind racing. What a stupid mistake to have made. His stupid mistake. If they’d brought along one more ship as a contingency, such as the Snow Leopard—
“All due respect to Wei-Ping, who I’m sure knows her stuff, but have you checked this with Sentinel or Tybalt?”
“He has,” Sentinel said. “And the calculations are correct. The two ships’ life-support systems do not have the capacity to safely transport this many people.”
“And you didn’t think it was important to say something to me?” Dash snapped at Sentinel, but Benzel held up a hand.
“I asked her not to. This is my screwup, so I wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“Your screw up?” Dash said. “More like mine. Like I told that Verity commander, I’m the Messenger, so I’m the one who wears things like this.”
“Dash, you can’t be expected to think of every—”
Leira, who’d joined them, cut into the conversation. “Tybalt patched me into this because he thought I should be part of it. Honestly, we’re all at fault,” she said. “Which doesn’t really matter, does it? We’ve learned something for next time. What we need to do now, for this time, is figure out what we’re going to do about it.”
“She’s right,” Dash said. “Okay, so—ideas.”
“Call back to the Forge and have them send another ship,” Leira suggested. “That’d be the easiest way.”
“Unwise,” Sentinel put in. “Several transmissions were sent from this station before we interrupted them. The risk of a superior Verity or Golden retaliatory force arriving increases with each passing minute.”
“Besides, I’m not really keen on trying to fight a battle with a ship jammed to the deck-joists with refugees,” Benzel said. “I mean, one hull breach…”
He trailed off, not needing to go on.
Dash took a deep breath then let it out. “Well, we simply can’t transport anyone aboard the mechs. And Sentinel’s right, we can’t hang around here. We should harvest whatever Dark Metal we can while we’re here and send a force back to try and grab the rest of the resources. But we need to get these people out of here and back to safety.” He bit his lip for a moment. “How about a stop at an intermediate system? Either to refresh our air, or even to drop some refugees off?”
But Wei-Ping, who’d also joined them, interrupted while shaking her head. “Already checked. The only systems a shorter flight time away than the Forge either have no habitable planets or might be controlled by the Verity.”
Dash scowled. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit, indeed,” Benzel said.
“Well, then we have no choice,” Dash finally replied. “We have to pack them in, evacuate them, and hope we can manage to make the air last until we get back to the Forge.”
Dash found the return trip to the Forge the most nerve-wracking yet—and he had some pretty scary return trips under his belt.
He felt so helpless. Benzel and Wei-Ping gave steady reports on the air quality aboard the Herald and the Retribution, and they weren’t good. Even keeping as many of the crew in vac suits for as long as they could, the air-cyclers simply couldn’t keep up with the throngs jammed into their corridors and compartments. Worse, because they had no idea if there were Verity spies or saboteurs among the refugees, large sections of both ships—bridge, weapons, magazines, and engineering—had to be kept off-limits, meaning each ship had more than a hundred and fifty extra people packed into what space remained.
Dash could only imagine the deteriorating conditions aboard the two ships. The rising tension and increasing breathlessness of both Benzel’s and Wei-Ping’s voices over the comm unfortunately made his imaginings much easier, and more vivid.
What if everyone aboard those ships just died?
He even raised this with Sentinel, asking her if the ships could pilot themselves back to the Forge, or if she and Tybalt could do it.
“Controlling the ships remotely is a relatively simple matter,” she replied. “However—”
She stopped.
“However what?” Dash asked.
“However, I am expressing a desire that it not come to that.”
That made Dash’s eyes widen in surprise, and even sting a bit. “Sentinel, that’s so—so human of you.”
“There is no need to be insulting.”
That actually made Dash laugh. But then he glanced at the Herald, and the Retribution beyond her, and his laughter stopped.
Dash ran into the docking bay. It was one of the biggest, one they didn’t normally use; Dash had Custodian power it up so they could use it to unload the Herald directly into the Forge. Her prow and forward ten meters or so now protruded into the bay through the force field maintaining environmental integrity, and people had been stumbling out of her forward airlock, wheezing, coughing, scattered around the bay and sucking in fresh air. The Retribution wouldn’t fit in here at the same time, so she’d been eased into another docking bay on the fabrication level, enough that she could poke an emergency airlock in through the force field and disgorge her gasping occupants.
Dash found Benzel snapping out orders amid the chaos—or trying to, between deep, hoarse breaths.
“Benzel! You okay?”
Benzel turned to him, his face nearly the same pale, neutral grey as the deck plates. However, a little flush had started back into his cheeks, which Dash took as a good sign.
“No,” Benzel gasped. “Let’s not…do that again…okay?”
Dash gave him a relieved clap on the shoulder. “Next time, we bring at least one more ship than we think we need, I promise.” He looked around at the throng still pouring out of the Herald. “Any casualties?”
Benzel nodded. “Yeah. Two. One guy—really old. And another—some respiratory thing.”
“Shit.”
“Could’ve been worse.”
“Yeah, true enough.”
It was. Sentinel had estimated the Herald had about two hours of breathable air left, the Retribution only one. If either had been delayed by—any number of things, really—a tense and dangerous situation could have become a disaster.
Dash moved to help a woman and her young child, who were wobbly and on the edge of collapse. As he did, it struck him he’d assumed that their worst casualties would come at the hands of the Golden, and not because he and his fellow leaders of the Cygnus Realm had simply screwed up.
20
Dash offered Benzel a smile. “You’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”
Benzel, Wei-Ping close behind, nodded back as they entered the Command Center. “Yeah, it’s amazing what a shower, a meal, and clean clothes can do. Oh yeah, and breathable freakin’ air.”
“For me, it wasn’t even so much the air,” Wei-Ping said. “It was the smell. Ugh. I think I still catch hints of it aboard the Retribution. Going to have to change all those scrubber filters.”
They found places among the others already assembled. Again, everyone was here. Even Conover had come, still hobbling a little, helped by Amy. The burn on his neck had mostly healed, thanks to the Forge’s med tech, but would leave a striking white scar like an intricately branching tree.
“You’re also looking better,” Dash said, passing Conover on his way to the front of the Command Center. “Way better.”
“Still a little wobbly,” Conover replied. “But I can manage. Doc Cyrus says I should be pretty much recovered in a few days.”
“Good, because I need you back at work.”
Amy shot Dash a frown. “Hey, give the guy a break.”
“Why? Because he was a damned fool who almost got himself killed doing
something stupid?”
Amy looked ready to fire back a retort but didn’t. She just looked at Conover and shrugged. “He’s right, you know. I tried to stick up for you, but sorry, you’re on your own for this.”
Dash grinned as he turned away. The way she’d said it, the way she’d looked at Conover as she did—yeah, this was no longer a one-way relationship.
“Okay, everyone, we’ve got decisions to make,” Dash said, stepping up in front of the big star chart. “First, though, let’s hear everyone’s report.”
One by one, they each stood and gave a quick rundown of their particular area. Overall, it was pretty much as Dash had expected. They were in reasonably good shape, but it could definitely be better.
“So it sounds like our production is going well,” Dash said. “But we’re still waiting on the Shroud, aren’t we?”
“We are,” Custodian said. “Final calibrations will be complete within a day, and then we will do the first test fabrication of a basic power core. That will take another two days.”
Viktor chimed in. “And if that all works out, and we end up with a working power core, we’ll ramp up into full production.”
“Well that’s good news,” Dash said. “It means those pieces we’ve started fabricating for the Talon and the Pulsar aren’t going to end up just sitting in storage.”
“We also now have two ship killers operational,” Custodian said. Dash had seen them, two sleek and sinister shapes hanging against the stars. Each vaguely resembled the Shroud, upon which they were based, but had been outfitted with rapid fire missile launchers and a full load of trans-luminal missiles. Between them, Custodian and Viktor had even come up with a way to swap out warheads as the missiles were about to be loaded into the launchers; they could select simple plasma-blast warheads, scrambler warheads to knock ships out of translation, or even flash warheads to disrupt their systems. They had to use the latter two sparingly, though, because they required Dark Metal and were complex to manufacture in such miniaturized forms.
“And then there’s ships,” Dash said, turning and looking at a window Custodian had popped open on the big display that showed the status of the fleet. “We’re in pretty good shape, and it gets a little better every day. I’d really like to get a few more bigger capital ships in play, though, along the lines of the Herald.”
“That is feasible if power cores constructed by the Shroud are used to energize more of the Forge’s fabrication systems,” Custodian said.
“I can see those power cores are going to become a bottleneck,” Leira said. “We’re going to have to make some decisions about priorities.”
“That we are,” Dash agreed, nodding. “But that’s not our biggest bottleneck. We could have a huge fleet, but it won’t do much good without anyone to crew it. And AIs only go so far—with all due respect to Custodian, Sentinel, and Tybalt, of course.”
“You are correct,” Sentinel said. “As you have amply demonstrated, humans and similar species have a capacity for spontaneity and creativity that artificial intelligences lack.”
“Well, you’re looking for people,” Harolyn said. “You just rescued three hundred from the Verity.”
“Yeah, sure, and I’m glad we did, but really, how many of those people can crew a ship? Even fight?”
“More than you might think,” Harolyn replied, looking at a data-pad. “We’ve done our first screening and have identified one hundred and”—she brushed a finger across the screen—“twenty-seven who have military experience or are trained in skills we could use. That includes four doctors, seven nurses, and five engineers of various types. Almost two hundred of them have experience crewing a ship of some description, too.”
“But we’ve only done a first pass,” Ragsdale put in. “We need to dig into their backgrounds and do a much more thorough screening before I’d be happy calling them safe and reliable.”
“Of course,” Dash said. “But let’s give priority to screening anyone with military experience, and then anyone with valuable skills.”
Ragsdale and Harolyn nodded.
“In the meantime, get them all assembled,” Dash went on. “I want to talk to them, start getting them used to us—and me, and how we’re going to fight this war.” He gestured around him.
“We’ll have them gathered in the big docking bay in an hour,” Harolyn said.
“Sounds good.” Dash turned to the star chart. “Now, on to strategy. What’s our next move?”
Dash moved among the freed captives, chatting, shaking hands, hugging, and generally uttering variations of “No problem, glad we could help you,” over and over again in response to effusive and often tearful thanks. When he finally made his way through the crowd, he climbed up onto a scrambler mine waiting to be loaded into the Horse Nebula and waited for everyone to fall silent.
“I know you’ve all heard this already, but I want to say it formally—welcome to the Cygnus Realm, the Forge, and freedom.”
It was trite and even a little corny, but it worked. A cheer went up, along with applause that didn’t stop until he raised his hands.
“That’s the feel-good part,” he said. “Now for the reality check, which isn’t anywhere near as rosy. I’d love to say you can relax here as long as you’d like, and recover from what you’ve been through—including us almost asphyxiating the whole lot of you.”
That actually prompted more laughter than Dash had expected, driving home just how glad these people were simply to not be in the hands of the Verity any longer. He raised his hands again, and again waited for silence.
“The grimmer truth is, we can’t do that. The Cygnus Realm really doesn’t have civilians, at least not yet. We’re at war, and whether you’re aboard a ship in battle, or back here helping us do all the things we need to do to make those battles ones we can win, our people are all at war, too. If you want to stay and help us, we’d be glad of it. That’s especially true if you have skills we need, such as military experience, or you’re a doctor or engineer or something like that. Even if you don’t, we’ll definitely find useful things for you to do. But you will be part of fighting that war if you stay with us.”
Dash gave a moment for it all to sink in, then went on. “And if you don’t want to be part of that, it’s entirely up to you. We’ll make arrangements to transport you to a nearby inhabited world, somewhere with a spaceport, and from there you can go wherever you want.”
Dash saw the reaction ripple through the crowd. Some stepped forward, eager to get to work. Others withdrew into themselves, or into small groups, speaking in hushed tones. And some, unsurprisingly, just stood and stared, their minds obviously still not in a place to truly understand what was going on, other than the horror of their captivity had ended.
“We’re not asking you to make your decision this instant,” Dash said. “Think about it for a day or so. But it can’t be much more than that, because the Golden won’t wait. Neither can we, and the sooner we take the fight to them, the sooner we can build something lasting. Something more than just endless fear and fighting. I promise you that.”
Dash clambered down off the mine, only to have someone step in front of him. It was Sera, the woman who’d guided him through Quarantine Station.
“I don’t need to think about it,” she said. “I’m ready to assume whatever duties you want me to, right now.”
Dash gave her a grateful smile. “Okay, and thank you. Go talk to Ragsdale—he’s the guy over there who’s scowling and looks like he has no sense of humor. He’ll get you sorted out.”
More people moved toward Dash, but Leira appeared, snagging his attention. He excused himself.
“What’s up?”
“Custodian’s finished putting together an intelligence picture from all of our data—drones, Dark Metal signals, that sort of thing—and the survivor accounts we’ve gathered so far,” Leira said, leading Dash away from the crowd. “The Verity are building a fleet. That’s why they were stripping resources out of that system whe
re they were holding all these people. They’re doing the same in a whole bunch of other systems, too.”
“Doesn’t that just say they’re gathering resources, though? How do we know it’s for a fleet?”
Leira allowed herself a triumphant smile. “Because Custodian has figured out where they’re building it. It’s a whole shipyard, Dash, with a partly completed fleet.”
Dash just stared for a moment, letting it sink in. The opportunity—holy shit. But the risk would also be enormous, because nothing the Verity had was likely to be as well-protected as a fleet under construction. It probably explained why Verity forces seemed so thin everywhere else.
“Dash?”
He felt a slow smile grow. “Finally. This is—it’s what we’ve been looking for. This is the piece. Does Custodian have a firm location?” His smile remained, more predatory than ever.
“He does. It’s a red giant, about forty light-years from here. Three rocky planets, one ice giant, and a lot of asteroids. The asteroids are being mined, and the shipyard is kind of hidden away among the moons of the ice giant.”
“Okay. We need to make this a top priority.” He looked at Leira. “I want that fleet. But if we can’t have it, then I want to destroy it. Have Custodian assemble everything into a planning map, and—”
“Messenger,” Custodian said. “We have an inbound ship.”
“Speak of the devil,” Dash said. “What is it?”
“A Golden drone. It is approaching at a high velocity, nearly point-two-five light speed.”
“No rest for the utterly exhausted,” Dash said to Leira as they both headed for their mechs.
As the Forge dwindled behind the Archetype, Dash studied the threat indicator. There was one drone, moving at a quarter of the speed of light. It was only minutes away.
But—one drone? Why only one?
“What the hell are you up to?” Dash asked as the image of the approaching drone shifted toward blue from the Doppler effect. “There’s got to be more to it than—”