by B. V. Larson
Kwon laughed uproariously, bending over and slapping his thigh until his eyes watered.
“What?” I asked. “What the hell is so funny?”
“Marvin is always experimenting on things—other life forms if he can get away with it. I bet he’s still got some of those Microbe things lying around. Now he’s someone else’s lab rat!”
I saw what he meant, and I chuckled. “Good point. But we still need him. We have to get him back.”
Kwon’s face fell. “How we gonna do that? These Ancients are too high-tech for us.”
“I don’t know how to get him back. I’ll add it to my long list of things that need to be done. But the Slab doesn’t scare me. If it’s just a machine, all we have to do is figure out its protocols: how to push its buttons.”
“What if there’s a super-smart biotic controlling it?”
I sighed, exasperated. “What if, what if? You getting cautious in your old age?”
“Hell no, boss. But this—it’s not anything I can fight.”
“You let me worry about that. I get a feeling before we’re done you’ll see plenty of action.”
That brought a smile to Kwon’s face. He slurped his soup for a moment, and then stood up. “I’m gonna try out the shower.”
I left him to his cleanup. He needed it. I needed it too, but I had things to do.
First, I went looking for some kind of human-usable controls inside Greyhound. Eventually I found a cramped cockpit tucked in among the other stuff. It was far different from the spacious and luxurious bridge the yacht used to have. I climbed in and tested out the flight systems finding them functional.
That was a relief. We could fly.
I returned to where my armor still stood on the deck outside of Greyhound, climbed back into it and headed for the fortress control center. “Kreel, are you ready?”
“Yes, Commodore. We have placed the fortresses on standby and can launch Ox within minutes. I have transmitted new access codes to my government and suggested they send crew. Better them than the rebels.”
“Our backdoor access codes are in place in case we return and find them hostile?”
“Yes. Here is a hard copy.” Kreel handed me a plastic printout.
“Then let’s go. Kwon and I will take Greyhound. You follow in Ox. Once we see what the situation is, I’ll have further orders.”
We exchanged salutes and hurried to our respective ships. Kwon was done with his cleanup and back in his armor leaving the one working niche free to recharge my battlesuit. Then I took my own shower. I had no idea how long it would be before the next one.
When the fine spray sluiced through my hair, I caught a leftover whiff of Adrienne’s scent, which drove a pang of worry through me. I wondered how she was doing and what she thought—and whether Marvin had been able to get word to anyone aboard Valiant. He hadn’t informed me of anything though that was par for the course. Still, he’d been unusually cooperative lately. Whether out of guilt or to build up his stack of bargaining chips, I didn’t know.
I forcibly shoved thoughts of my girl out of my mind to focus on the tasks in front of me. Everything would be set right once I was in charge again.
Clean and in the cockpit, I felt like a new man. I hadn’t piloted much lately, but I’d done my weekly simulator time playing combat flight games with the Dagger controllers. Because of that I didn’t think I would screw up anything too badly. The Raptors had left the shuttle bay doors on automatic, so all I had to do was lift carefully on repellers and hover slowly forward until they sensed Greyhound and opened.
Once in free space, I felt a lot better. Rather than a passenger on a weak, clumsy alien transport, I was now piloting a hot ship and was master of my own destiny once more. The odds might be stacked against me, but I’d been there before.
“Everything okay, boss?” I heard Kwon through the cockpit speakers.
“Yep, we’re good,” I replied. “Hey, while I’m finding my feet, why don’t you check out the factory? See if you can make a couple of surfboards or something.”
“Sure, boss,” Kwon said doubtfully. “But I’m not too good with technical bullshit.”
“Just see if there’s a standard menu you can figure out and push start. No need to write a new script.”
Really, I just wanted to keep him busy. Turning Greyhound to point upward, I climbed away from the surface of Orn Six, which loomed too close for my comfort.
“Greyhound, respond,” I said experimentally.
Unfortunately, nothing replied. It had been a long shot anyway. Marvin had admitted subsuming Greyhound’s AI within his own neural circuitry. I’d never pinned him down on whether that meant he’d physically transferred the brainbox or just put it into permanent network with him.
I itched to charge through the ring, but I had to get familiar with Greyhound again. I ran through all the standard menus and scripts trying out the manual controls. It was like going back to the Stone Age after commanding Valiant with a crew, a holotank and a voice-activated AI. Still, I wasn’t so far out of the Academy that I’d lost proficiency on basic flying. In this department I had an advantage over someone older and more experienced. I hadn’t forgotten how to ride this particular bicycle.
Exploring every menu tree, I found some interesting things available to me. Besides one main laser about the size of Valiant’s secondaries, Marvin had installed an anti-proton weapon alongside it. He’d also rigged a surprising number of point defense weapons in the tail, rather like the Raptors had. I guess he liked the idea of being able to knock down missiles while running as fast as he could.
Greyhound also had doubled magnetic shields, apparently another defensive modification, and two small missile launchers.
Marvin had been busy.
One menu item was listed as RQTEA, though it didn’t seem to do anything when I clicked on it. I also found something labeled “Cloak,” which piqued my interest immediately. I brought up the menu item as I thought about it.
“Riggs to Kreel,” I said as I opened a channel. Ox was below us and climbing slowly, according to plan.
“Kreel here.”
“Focus sensors on Greyhound, will you? I want to try something.”
A moment passed. “Ready.”
I activated the “Cloak” system, hoping it was what I suspected.
Nothing seemed to happen.
“Kreel, have you observed anything unusual about Greyhound? Any difficulty seeing us?”
“No, Commodore. Should we have?”
I mumbled a few curses. “Never mind. Riggs out.” So much for my hope that Marvin had a functioning super-stealthy cloaking system. Still, the command was on the menu, so it had to do something. Or maybe Marvin hadn’t gotten it working.
An hour later I was done getting the feel of the ship and was ready to do or die. Kwon had managed to create two standard surfboards and I calculated them into my plans. He’d also come up with a couple of nanite booster syringes, which he assured me were for humans and not Raptors. I made him stick himself first in case he had any lingering doubts. Nothing bad happened, so I gave myself the shot to ensure I was fortified to the max.
“All right, here we go,” I transmitted to Ox and turned Greyhound on its nose. Directly past the fortresses, I dove the ship on full power aiming straight for the ground—or rather for the ring lying flat on the planet surface. The mouth of it was open, a circular tunnel to some dark hell.
Just before impact, I shut down the engines to cruise on repellers only.
“Yee-haw!” I yelled as we flashed though the ring. Ox following more slowly. Immediately, I angled our course off to one side while checking my screens for obstacles, objects and the layout of the star system.
What I found surprised and, later, awed me.
The ring we’d arrived through orbited alone in the middle reaches of this system well away from its central star. We were far enough away that it took several minutes to identify. It was a cool yellow dwarf. Immediately afterwar
d came the surprise, which was mitigated only by the rumor Kreel had passed on to me. Near the small sun, comparable to Mercury in size and distance, orbited a small metal world. No other planets could be seen.
With optics at maximum zoom, I saw a distinct disc with a high albedo—it reflected most of the light that struck it as if made of burnished gold.
I piloted Greyhound until I was able to match velocities with Ox, hanging just a hundred yards off the Raptor vessel’s port side. Using a low-power directional laser I hailed Kreel.
“What do you see?” I asked. “Any sign of the Slab, Stalker or Valiant?” Despite being a simple transport, Ox was a full-sized ship with standard computers and a crew. I needed to use that equipment on Ox, as without an AI I wasn’t able to use Greyhound’s sensor equipment very well. Marvin must have provided all the processing power himself.
“All three are near the golden planet,” Kreel replied. “We are too far to acquire details.”
“Set course for that body,” I said. “Use repellers only.”
“That will take almost a day.”
“We can always fire up the engines later. Right now I’m hoping nobody except the Slab has noticed we just came through. With no fusion flares, they may be too busy with each other to spot us.”
Our long inbound trip seemed agonizingly slow, but stealth was more important than speed right now. If they spotted Ox first, which was the most probable outcome due to her large size, the Raptors were defenseless. Either large ship could kill her.
If Stalker saw Greyhound, however, we might become a target as well. If Valiant spotted Greyhound and hailed us, I couldn’t impersonate Marvin. While revealing that I was alive might change the calculus, it also might get us killed. Sokolov could easily claim it was a trick, that the accompanying Raptors had plenty of recordings of Kwon and me with which to build video clones.
No, I had to get aboard and talk to people I trusted in person. That was the only certain method. If I could do that, all the dominoes should fall my way.
A day passed. By the time we arrived in the area, Kwon and I were about to strangle each other from the boredom and close quarters. We couldn’t find vid or book libraries in the system. Marvin had probably deleted them as unnecessary. Kwon had no gym, and the beer the food dispenser gave us was worse than none at all. I’d transferred all the good drinks to Valiant long ago.
We could have docked with Ox and visited, but besides the stinking air I wanted to be ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice.
On the positive side, we did catch up on our sleep. Thank God for earplugs. Kwon’s snores could wake the dead.
As we approached, we saw Stalker on one side of the golden planet and Valiant on the other. The Slab was nowhere to be seen. The Raptor battleship seemed to be in bad shape. Valiant showed some damage, but it looked operational. They must have had another battle with us coming out on top again. I wondered what had stopped it. Something obviously had, and I doubted it was Sokolov’s mercy.
“Commodore Riggs,” Kreel said on the narrowbeam channel, “Stalker is hailing us. It appears they have been heavily damaged and have lost half their crew. They’re calling for Raptor solidarity and asking for an alliance.”
“Didn’t they try to kill you all a couple of days ago?”
“Of course.”
“What’s your reply going to be?”
“It’s not mine to give. We are sworn to your service.”
That was the answer I was looking for. “Do you think you can pull the same trick we used on the fortresses?”
Kreel’s crest flared behind his head, and then slowly fell. “If you order it.”
“There’s no dishonor in lying to liars and traitors. I won’t order you, but try to focus on the outcome, not the process.”
“That reasoning invites chaos,” Kreel said after a moment’s consideration. “Nevertheless, I will do as you wish.” He cut the channel.
Hopefully his acting skills were up to the task. Soon Ox forged ahead, curving around toward Stalker. I hoped Sokolov didn’t decide to renew hostilities. The range was too long for Valiant to fire beams at Ox, but if he lobbed a few missiles I’d have to try to use Greyhound to help pick them off.
Fortunately, Valiant stayed passive. In fact, with all my sensors aimed at the battlecarrier I couldn’t discern any movement or activity. No beam weapons twitched here and there as the brainbox detected incoming micrometeorites. There was no adjustment of radar antennas or optical pickups. There weren’t even any low-level repeller emissions for station-keeping.
Neither of the two big ships was orbiting the golden world, but both were far enough out from the planet that they were falling slowly toward it due to gravity. “Falling” was a purely technical term, for at their current velocities it would take over a week before either impacted. In fact, both big ships were orbiting the central star rather than the planet.
I decided to wait on making any move with Greyhound until I saw what the outcome of Kreel’s gambit was. If I piloted my ship in with him, I could blow the whole deal. If I approached Valiant the golden planet would get between us, and I wouldn’t be able to see what happened.
So I waited.
Ox slid toward Stalker, moving closer at a steady rate. I presumed communication lasers were hard at work between them as I couldn’t pick up any radio transmissions. That was good—if I couldn’t eavesdrop, neither could Sokolov.
Stalker’s remaining weapons were pointed at Ox, causing me to sweat. The muzzles of lasers followed the transport all the way in until the two ships docked, looking like one smaller bird snuggling up to a larger one. The disparity wasn’t all that great. Military transports were sized to carry cargo and personnel. Their dimensions were all out of proportion to their limited combat capability.
As soon as the ships touched, I saw Raptors in armor pour out of Ox’s cargo bays and airlocks, swarming across to the battleship. They entered rents in the big ship’s armor and I could see the flash of laser fire used in combat or to cut their way in. I didn’t know what Stalker’s crew complement was, but I had to hope my Raptors outnumbered them especially after the hammering Stalker had taken from Valiant. Also, the element of surprise was with my guys and their morale would be much higher than the rebels’, not to mention they were now nanotized.
I imagined the scene as our shocked enemies, not all of them in full armor the way my troops were, fought desperately against overwhelming odds. Lasers would spear out to blow smoking holes in flesh. Spiked tails would crush limbs and heads. Some would surrender and some would die where they stood.
My main worry revolved around Stalker’s bridge and leadership. Would they seal themselves in at the first sign of trouble? Would they self-destruct their own ship in order to keep it out of the hands of attackers?
I wasn’t sure, but I doubted it. If the reports were true, the rebels were motivated not by ideology but by a desire for power. Now, cut off, driven out of their own star system with an alien enemy lurking nearby they must be near despair.
Long minutes passed. I hailed the two ships several times with a tight beam until eventually I got a response.
“This is Kreel,” I heard the voice of my suit’s translation software relayed through my earbud. “We have Stalker.”
I heard Kwon whoop behind me. “Sure wish I could have gone along for that fight.”
“Sorry, big man. That was the Raptors’ battle. A human would have just confused what I’m sure was a matter of honor.” I switched to Kreel’s channel. “Well done, Commander. Continue with the plan. I trust your judgment if you need to make changes due to the local situation.”
When I’d laid out my intentions, I’d stressed to Kreel that I didn’t need to approve everything he did. Raptors were used to working under precise orders from their chain of command. I hoped he understood he needed to act more like an independent Star Force commander than a Raptor follower.
“Boss, I just thought of something,” Kwon said.
> “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
“I know. Not like me, huh? When there is nothing much to do, I think more. Anyway, where’s the other ring?”
“Good question. I’ve been too busy to wonder. Without an AI I’d have to use active sensors to find something that small in the whole star system, and I don’t want to risk it.”
“Why not? We might be out of beam range, but we’re close enough that Valiant’s brainbox can’t have missed us. The Ancients can probably see everything anyway. What does it matter if we send out a signal?”
Kwon was right. I’d been in stealth mode so long I was starting to get timid.
“Good point,” I said, bringing up the active radar array and setting it to full mapping mode. “There. Let’s see what that gets us.”
The radar pulses travelled outward in all directions at lightspeed, which was fast for local use, but they would still take quite a while to reach the edge of the star system and the same time to return. Then there were the blind spots behind the golden planet and the star itself.
Something occurred to me as I waited. Why hadn’t Valiant hailed Greyhound expecting to hear from Marvin? Even if they really hadn’t spotted us until our pulse, they should be trying to talk to us—or at least to Marvin—by now.
But that hadn’t happened.
Again I cursed the lack of AI on this ship. Then I thought of a solution and cursed myself for a fool.
“Suit,” I said through my earbud link. “How’d you like a promotion?”
-15-
“Keep an eye on things,” I told Kwon, “I need to use the factory.”
Greyhound’s factory room was larger than most of Marvin’s minimal spaces. That might be because he spent a fair amount of time there. The room was lacking a chair because Marvin didn’t need one. The mechanism itself was barely the size of a dorm-room fridge or a small oven. Fortunately, Marvin had included a standard control interface. I activated it.