“That is a plausible scenario,” said Tac, “It may also explain the motivation behind the Betrayal. They lacked the sophistication to extract the knowledge they needed to analyse the Drives without giving away what they had. They also lacked the subtle demeanour and careful plotting to steal that knowledge through espionage.”
“So they took it,” I said, nodding, “I bet they found a science facility and the Jaani learned a few techniques that they told the Sectis about.”
“There was a research team deployed to Sho’da Nar during the Betrayal,” said Harris, “It was one of the first places to fall to the Ghantri.”
I blew the air out of my lungs. “I suppose it’s just academic at this point. The Ghantri have what they wanted, and now the Protectorate is pulling out.”
“I shall continue to work on the neuro-module,” said Tac, “Sending the command codes to you now, Seth.”
“I have an idea how to use these, too,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
I sat back and relaxed for the rest of the ride, working out in my head how we would proceed. In no time at all, the elevator reached the docking sphere, and the last of the evacuees offloaded to the station hub. I met up with Kekkin, who reported they had sighted only a handful of Jaani, but a dozen Ghantri patrolling the corridors deeper within the sphere. From his observations, he believed that there were at least two factions of Ghantri operating within the facility – although they refrained from battling each other.
“One faction stays in upper sections of dock,” he explained, “They send no patrols, don’t care about rest of facility. Other looks like the kak we fought here. More weapons. Less Jaani. They hold the hangars.”
“They’ve probably joined forces,” I said, “This level of organisation usually means they’re part of a warband. Did you get any eyes on their main staging areas?”
“Rego tapped into station security. AI was asleep, human woke it up. Works for us now. Tracking calak movements easy. Avoided most patrols so far.”
“Can we get these people through the main concourse to the hangar?”
“Will need distraction, something to draw calak from hangar. Move refugees in one action.”
“Can you suggest anything?”
He waved Renthal and Harris over and explained what we needed.
“You guys remember that run through asteroid 198B in Votus System?” said Renthal.
“Want to create distraction, not station destruction,” chided Kekkin.
“What about that job on Corus Cluster, Argessi?” said Harris.
“You guys have done ops on the Corus Cluster?” I said, surprised.
“Too subtle,” said Kekkin, shaking his head, “Need to draw attention. Warrior remembers the raid on Fen-Harn Corporate office, Acheras Orbital.”
Renthal nodded his head vigorously, Harris was grinning.
“What does that mean?” I said, looking between the trio.
“Warriors will create distraction, naga-zak just say when.”
“I’ll get Geko to round us up some copper wire,” said Harris, high-fiving Renthal as he walked away.
“I’ll get Rego to show me the power distribution for the upper levels,” said Renthal, grinning from ear to ear.
“What did I just sign up for?” I said.
“Does naga-zak believe in ghosts?” said Kekkin.
“No…what?”
He just laughed and shook his head again.
“Did you at least identify a suitable ship in the hangar?”
“Warriors found perfect ship. Cruiser taking up most of hangar. AI says every month new Cruiser docks and changes out Ghantri warbands down below. Will be cramped, but warrior remembers Cruiser has big cargo hold. Checked. Primacy core design, few Ghantri additions. Didn’t get too close, full of calak. Think local soldiers can hijack it?”
It was my turn to smile. “Won’t need to. My father once told me that to survive in the frontier, you sometimes got to think like a pirate.”
“What does that mean?”
“I aim to misbehave.”
I too could play the mysterious one, and I left Kekkin confused and rubbing his beak with his good hand. I found Rego and asked him about enemy patrol routes. He just smiled and told me he could do one better. An icon began to flash on my overlay, one I’d not seen for a long while – we had a local network active!
“I’m connecting now. Did the AI set this up?”
He nodded. “It made an app to track the Ghantri movements. It should appear in a moment, along with a few advertisements. The damn thing still thinks it’s operational."
True to his word, the usual assortment of tourist adverts bombarded my overlay, the kind you get when you first arrive at a new station or planet. I mentally flicked them aside, finding the new app amongst them. Once installed, I opened it and hundreds of opaque orange dots began to appear in my vision.
“These dots are Ghantri?” I asked.
“They’ll turn red when you get close and a vector will appear when it looks like they’ll cross your path.”
“Handy.”
“We’ve been busy up here. Not everyone gets a nice safe, desperate battle for survival, you know?”
“Lucky us. Does the network have text services?”
It sure does, LT, came a text from Rego as he smiled at me smugly, we’ve also got command of all sphere communication lines. Say the word and the AI can block out all signals from the station.
“Keep in touch, let me know when the rest of Naga Team is ready for that distraction. Whatever it is.”
He flipped me a quick salute as I headed for the loading dock exit. Once out in the docking sphere proper, I jogged along the main access corridor towards the hangar. I slowed as I neared the giant compartment, checking the locations of Ghantri within. I counted nine sentries, mostly on upper levels. We would need to deal with them if the distraction didn’t draw them away from their posts. For now, I could avoid them if I was careful.
I opened the hatch and stepped onto a large platform that ran the length of the hangar complex. The hangar was massive, easily able to accommodate several commercial Transports at once. Or one giant Cruiser. The hangar stretched for over two kilometres in a cylindrically shaped tube just over one kilometre in diameter. Several platforms framed a central cavity for receiving ships, with gantries arching over the expanse. One end of the hangar was open to naked space, the atmosphere inside kept in place by a shimmering atmo shield. These shields used gravity waves to hold life-sustaining air in place, a barrier against the vacuum.
The Cruiser was nearly a kilometre and a half long. Its cross section was a tapered diamond – broad across the top, elongating and widening down its length. A stalwart, solid design that I was familiar with – a Harakiwan modular Danghar Class ship. The Danghar was a Primacy Fleet favourite. They were easily outfitted for multirole missions, cheap to run, and reliable. Eridanians used to brag that they had the fastest fleets in the Network, but the Harawikans boasted that they could build a dozen of these in the time it took Eridanian shipyards to produce five ships of similar displacement. This was great news. I’d served on a Danghar during my first few years as a Star Marine.
I realised I was wasting time gawking at the ship, leaning against the rail. I noted that there were no orange dots within the ship, and asked Rego about it.
The AI can’t penetrate the hull. It’s not connected to the station’s security grid.
It wouldn’t matter, I decided. What I had planned would work regardless.
I approached the ship, moving carefully between cover. It took me a couple of minutes, but I eventually spotted the main hatch and accompanying gangway adjoining the ship to the platform. I crept along the walkway, careful not to look down. A slight breeze circulated from the hangar’s life support vents somewhere, giving the walkway a minor sway that I found unsettling.
At the ship’s hull, I looked around for a maintenance panel I knew would be near the hatch and used the tip of my lurzak to undo the scre
ws securing it. When it was open I keyed a set of commands into a control panel within. After accessing some old files on my overlay memory, I recalled the correct sequence to open a network port in the Cruiser’s computer systems.
An authorisation AI interrogated me immediately. Holding my breath, I gave it the command codes that Tac had given me. After a few seconds, the AI accepted them and I let my breath out in relief.
Once ‘inside’ the ship’s local network, I used the command codes to connect to engineering. My overlay was augmented with a slew of engineering controls and displays, readouts and energy levels. It took me several minutes, but I eventually found the menus and commands that I needed. Before I had found them all, Rego notified me that Kekkin had reported success in preparing for his distraction.
Get a hold of the Cohens, I ordered, tell them to get the civilians ready to move.
I waited for five minutes, reviewed my command sequences and then breathed in deeply.
“Time to get this show on the road.”
I activated the commands and stepped back from the hatch, lurzak in hand.
My overlay showed the many readouts I was observing begin to flash alerts and issue warnings. I was watching the oxygen levels in all the compartments. They started to plummet as the air was vented from each section of the ship in turn.
I knew that as a safety feature, I could not vent every compartment in the ship, I had to leave at least two compartments with oxygen. So I chose the two main airlocks on either side of the ship – the one facing me and another that led to a drop half a kilometre down.
I also knew that the Ghantri could survive for up to ten minutes in a vacuum, so there was a good chance that some would make it to either of these hatches. After five minutes, a pop and the sound of venting air announced that the airlock was in use. I waited until my readouts told me the atmosphere inside the airlock had equalised, then opened outer ‘lock.
Three Ghantri were lying on the deck, gasping for air as they tried to recover. I stepped up to the first and drove my blade through his skull. The second tried to stand, kicking six spindly insectile, cybernetic legs out from under itself. I chopped through a limb raised in defence, delivering a backhand slice to its midriff that opened its abdomen to the air. It tried to stab at me feebly with two scythe-bladed appendages, but it was clearly weakened by its recent ordeal. I sidestepped and drove my point through its throat.
As it died flopping on the deck, I turned to the third. It had not risen from the deck, having expired before air had entered the airlock.
I waited another ten minutes, but no more Ghantri made it out.
Tell Kekkin to start the diversion.
In moments, the station power fluctuated wildly, the lights dimming and returning to full strength. A power coupler overhead exploded as the contacts overloaded, sending bright sparks raining down into the hangar below. I began to worry about the atmo shield, but it never wavered. Orange dots started to move around erratically and after another five minutes, the guards in the hangar left their posts.
Cut the station comms and get the civilians moving, I sent to Rego, time to leave this station.
13.
As if by divine providence, obstacles before us started to fall away. Like a choreographed dance, my plan moved along with alacrity and accuracy. I started to doubt our good fortune. How could things be going so well, after so much anguish and suffering before? But things had to go right for us eventually. Fate decided that now was our time.
The first of our soldiers entered the Cruiser, clearing each compartment in turn. With each new breach, I expected a Ghantri counter attack by a pocket of survivors, but we had caught them completely unprepared. As the evacuees filtered into the airlock, I had the soldiers tossing the carcases of the Ghantri out of the other one. Naga Team made it down to the hangar as the last of the civilians boarded the ship.
Harris and Renthal, grinning from ear to ear, were covered in grime and lubricants. The stalwart Garz’a, still nursing his tender arm, was picking patches of polycrete foam from around his head and chest.
“Do I want to know?” I asked, clasping their forearms in turn.
“We love our job,” said Renthal, “The sarge drew the short straw.”
“Warrior regrets being talked into democratic mission planning.”
I smiled at them. “Rego is checking out the bridge with Tac and Cohen. I’m going to check on Merade and make sure her people are secured, then I’ll join you.”
“Warriors will see naga-zak on the bridge.”
I gripped his shoulder and ushered them inside, sealed the outer ‘lock and entered the ship. I called up a deck plan I had pulled from the ship’s memory cores and mapped out a waypoint to the cargo hold. Merade had mustered the civilians there until we had more information regarding berthing arrangements. We also had to organise our remaining rations and ensure people had facilities to use. When I arrived, she had things well in hand. She had called for volunteers from the older civilians, ones who had experience with ships. Many of the younger generation also had used starships before, at least ridden in them on their way to the asteroid fields and other mining expeditions forced on them by their former Ghantri overlords.
I stood around watching for a few minutes before I realised that my input was not needed. I nodded to Merade and left, heading to the bridge.
The bridge of the Cruiser was a two-tiered compartment – an operations floor and a command mezzanine. Ordinarily, a Cruiser of this size would require a crew of over two hundred people, but a skeleton crew of fifty could operate most of the functions in a bind. We were in such a bind. Fortuitously, Rego and Tac had been working on a solution before I got there.
“Maintenance is not a priority,” said Rego, accessing various functions from an operations console, “so we won’t need to worry about most engineering functions. The problem is, we need people in the engineering spaces to monitor energy levels, reactor loads, balance propulsion catalysts and make sure the AI’s are handling things down there.”
“I’ll check in with mother,” said Alexander, “There should be people we can use from the civilian ranks with experience. Most of the older generation were brought to this system as part of a ship’s company.”
“Thanks,” I said, “See if you can round up anyone with capital ship experience, too. I want to start putting people through the various stations and see what roles they’re capable of filling. What’s the state of the ship? Anything we need to address before we get underway?”
“There is a fair bit of confusion with the bridge AI’s,” said Rego, highlighting a bank of alerts on his console, “Most of the functions on the bridge were handled manually and the AI Cores have not been purged in a long time.”
He referred to a process used to ensure smooth operation of artificial intelligence. By periodically flushing their memory, superfluous data and programming instabilities can be limited. If left long enough without proper data maintenance, AI Cores can build up unwanted personalities and behavioural quirks. Historically, this has been the most common cause of AI’s going rogue and bypassing their brakes and a memory purge is an easy way of ensuring this does not happen. Apparently, the Jaani did not attend basic AI maintenance classes.
“Okay, can we flush them after we pull away from the station? How long will they be down for if we do it?” I asked.
“Several hours, at least.”
“How coherent are the cores at the moment? Can we launch?”
Rego spread his hands out. “Don’t know for sure. I mean, the Ghantri obviously did, but they’re not the most safety conscious folk in the galaxy.”
“Can we do it or not?” I looked between Rego and Tac.
“I estimate a 7.34% chance that the AI Cores will instigate a catastrophic event, considering current rampancy levels,” said Tac, “Approximately.”
“Can you link with them? Talk them through it? At least monitor them for chaotic behaviour while we move out of the area?”
“Got an updated estimate on our chances of crashing and burning?” I said.
“2.92%.”
“Approximately?” said Rego, grinning wryly.
Tac inclined his head slightly. “Do it,” I said.
While I surveyed the upper mezzanine, Alex returned with several older men and women from the cargo hold – our ragtag bridge crew. They set to work immediately, accessing several consoles and switchboards about the operations deck. I sat down in the central command chair, the captain’s station, and rested for a while. I was getting anxious, we needed to launch as soon as possible. Kekkin assured me that the distraction would keep the Ghantri in the station occupied for at least forty-five minutes more, but if we couldn’t get the ship functional in that time we would need to get underway while fending off hostile attacks from the dock.
Seth, came Ormund’s text over the battlenet, the Dreaming is picking us up in ten minutes. Are you going to be underway soon?
Unsure. Getting our crew familiarised with the ship is taking a while, plus we have some issues with the AI’s on board.
We’ll have to disconnect the battlenet for a while once we leave our little nest here. Should take us about an hour to set up again once we’re onboard the Dreaming. If there’s nothing you need right now, I’d like to start packing up.
Sure. Good luck, Ormund. Give my love to Zoe.
Good luck, talk to you soon.
“LT!” called Rego down below, “Incoming communication request from the engineering spaces.”
“Put it through to the command chair up here,” I said. A light illuminated on the armrest, among a gamut of other indicators and controls. I pushed the button and a speaker near the headrest activated.
“This is engineering, sir,” said a gravelly old voice, “Merade told me to come check it out down here and see what I can see.”
“This is Seth, who am I speaking with?”
“Name’s Gannerson. I worked for a bulk freighter company just before the Betrayal. Worked on plenty of engines before. Been a while, and I ain’t never worked on military ships before, but I’m sure I can work this out.”
Frontier's End: A Seth Donovan Novel Page 7