The Long Road Home (A Learning Experience Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Aye, sir,” Williams said.

  Elton tapped his console. “Major Rhodan, you are cleared to board the enemy vessel,” he said. The marines had been waiting in their assault shuttles ever since he’d devised the interception plan. “Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Rhodan said. Two new icons appeared on the display as the marines undocked. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  ***

  The armoured combat suit itched.

  Major Peter Rhodan told himself, firmly, that it was just another case of pre-combat jitters, made worse by the combat suit. His armour was hot and warm and itched every time he donned it, an itch that miraculously vanished as soon as the mission actually began. If there were marines who got the shakes before a drop or others who spent time looking at photographs of their loved ones, why not marines who got an itch?

  He shoved the thought out of his head as the assault shuttle closed in on its target. The alien battlecruiser was a solid kilometre long, two hundred metres longer than Odyssey ... her hull scorched and pitted by multiple phaser hits. His sensors reported that the alien hull was bare of weapons, although he knew better than to take that for granted. A simple railgun would be enough to vaporise the assault shuttle. Odyssey would take a terrible revenge, of course, but he and his marines would still be dead.

  “Zeroing in on the forward hatch,” the pilot called. “One minute to unforced docking.”

  “Understood,” Peter said. He tongued his mouthpiece, widening the channel. He needed to speak to the entire platoon. “Remember, these are POWs; not terrorists, not pirates, not some bug-eyed scum-suckers from some godforsaken rock a billion light years from home. Treat them with respect until they give you a reason to do otherwise.”

  He cut off a couple of complaints as the shuttle hovered in front of the forward hatch and began docking procedures. The Galactics, in their bureaucratic zeal, had devised rules for each and every possible situation, including unconditional surrender. He’d had those rules hammered into his head during advanced training, but he knew - all too well - that the Harmonies might not honour them. They’d already broken so many rules that they had no reason to expect their opponents to honour them. The Galactics made an exemption for rule-breakers ...

  ... And the marines were uncomfortably exposed.

  He checked his weapons as the hatch linked up and hissed open. Air flooded into the depressurised shuttle, bringing with it a series of warnings about atmospheric contaminants and potential damage to the life support. Peter took a moment to compare the readings to the data they’d collected on Harmony, then stepped through the hatch. His skin started to itch, again, as the inner hatch opened. If someone was plotting an ambush, they’d have an easy target.

  His suit started to deploy nanoprobes as soon as he stepped through the second hatch, the probes hastily spreading out and heading into the giant ship. The enemy should have had nanoprobes of their own configured to catch and destroy his probes, but nothing attempted to impede their progress. Perhaps the aliens would honour the surrender after all. He caught himself as three aliens stepped into view, all hatless. It was the first time he’d seen a Harmony without something covering his head.

  The three aliens looked ... battered. He wasn't sure how he got that impression - he’d seen marines take worse damage in mock fights - but it stuck. They moved as if they expected to be struck at any moment, as if they were scared. It dawned on him, suddenly, that they probably were scared. They’d known they were perfectly safe in FTL. Nothing could touch them there ...

  ... Until they’d been yanked out of FTL and smashed into submission.

  “Greetings,” the lead alien said. He knelt, looking down at the deck. “Under the Galactic Conventions of ...”

  “You will assemble your crew and prepare to have them transported off the ship,” Peter said, cutting them off. He was in charge and he had to act like it. The Galactics could not be allowed to think they could weasel their way out of trouble. “You will ensure that they are not carrying weapons nor anything that could reasonably be defined as a weapon. They will not remove anything else from the ship, save for the clothes they’re wearing. If you have wounded, they will receive treatment.”

  The alien didn't look up. “We understand,” he said. He looked up, suddenly. “It is my duty to warn you that failure to treat my crew under the Galactic Conventions will result in punishment.”

  Peter bit down a sarcastic remark about the Harmonies ignoring the Galactic Conventions when it suited them. Coming to think of it, there was no reason to believe that the Tokomak intended to honour the Conventions either ... and they’d written them. Instead, he checked the live feed from the nanoprobes and then peered down at the alien.

  “The Conventions will be honoured as long as you and your crew behave themselves,” he said, finally. “And I suggest you start by following my orders.”

  The next stream of updates from the nanoprobes arrived. There were over two thousand aliens on the battlecruiser, more than double Odyssey’s crew. Peter made a mental note to organise life-support modules - there was no way he could risk moving so many prisoners to Odyssey, even without their senior officers - and then sent the alien officers onto the shuttlecraft. They, at least, would be separated from their crewmen.

  Which wouldn't slow us down, Peter thought. But it might just keep the Harmonies from doing something stupid.

  “Move the crew into the holds and keep them there,” he ordered, as more marines flooded onto the alien ship. “Draw a full manifest from the ship’s computer and get a full list of crewmen, then account for every man jack of them.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  Peter nodded as they fanned out through the alien ship. Its designers hadn't made too many changes to the original Tokomak design, although they’d widened the corridors for reasons that escaped him. Most of the Harmonies were inhumanly thin, by human standards. His suit kept picking up traces of damage, including the residue of power surges that had probably wreaked havoc inside the ship. He couldn't help thinking that the interior of the ship looked like something out of a bad movie. The Harmonies had never expected to have to compensate for such a radical crash out of FTL.

  He braced himself as he stepped onto the bridge. As per orders, only two officers had been left on the deck, both of whom surrendered at once. Peter sent them to join the others in the shuttle, then studied the alien bridge. It looked like a throne room, with the captain sitting well above the others. He couldn't help thinking that it was more than a little pretentious, even by Galactic standards. But maybe it suited them.

  “Captain,” he said. “The ship is secure. I’m moving the crew to safe quarters.”

  And hope to hell they are safe quarters, he added, silently. We might not recognise an alien weapon until it was shoved into our backs.

  “Very good,” Captain Yasser said. “Lieutenant Fisher is on her way over. Clear the way for her.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Peter said.

  His earpiece buzzed. “These guys are creepy, sir,” Lieutenant George said. “They’re just shuffling along like ... like electro-druggies.”

  “They’re not used to thinking for themselves,” Peter said. “Just keep a close eye on them.”

  ***

  Lieutenant Jayne Fisher sucked in a breath as she materialised on the bridge of the alien battlecruiser. She wasn’t scared of the teleporter, unlike some of the old fogies who could remember the days before First Contact, but - as an intelligence expert as well as a cyborg - she knew all too well just what a tiny little flicker in the matter stream could do. Sure, the teleport blocker - standard-issue on just about every starship - had been turned off, but the battlecruiser was not in good shape. It would be no consolation to know the aliens hadn't intended to kill her if a stray energy pulse scattered her atoms over the quadrant.

  She looked around, hunting for the nearest computer access port. There would be one, she knew. The Harmonies had copied practically everything
from the Tokomak, after they’d accepted a position in their empire. She checked her records, worked out where the nearest port had to be and carefully removed one of the chairs to expose it. The port was just as she had expected, perfectly designed to allow access. Bracing herself, she unhooked a cyborg cable from one of her implants and plugged it into the system. There was a moment of utter darkness, then ...

  ... She plunged into a whirlwind of data. Even damaged, even with half its remaining systems powered down, the starship was still absorbing data. The King Hakim XIII - the ship’s identity was easy to pick out amidst the storm - might be old, but she was still a mighty machine. She couldn't help a flicker of admiration for the Tokomak as she started to access the ship’s innermost datacores, looking for the classified safe. The Tokomak might be bastards, but they definitely knew how to build starships.

  Her smile widened as she pushed further and further into the network. This was what she loved. One day, she’d make the jump completely into e-personality and abandon her human body completely. Until then ... bursts of data shot at her, everything from fleet movement orders to encryption protocols. She eyed the latter warily - a human computer would have an AI or RI watching for any intrusion - but they remained motionless. It puzzled her, even though the ship had been blasted out of FTL and the crew shocked ...

  Maybe they never considered that they would lose a ship, she thought. Or maybe they just expected to have the time to destroy the datacores.

  It was a remarkably ordered system, she noted, even by military standards. Odyssey - and some of the other ships she’d served on - had little subsections that belonged to various crewmen, ranging from porn to private chat compartments. Finding such subsections and ensuring they didn't pose a danger had been one of her duties. But there ... there were no individual subsections at all, not even the standard folders assigned to each crewman. There was almost no individuality at all.

  She put it aside for later consideration, then dug deeper. The classified datacore was secure, surprisingly so. Indeed, she was tempted to wonder if it had come from a different designer altogether. She tried to get in, discovered that it was impossible without direct access and carefully pulled out of the network. Her head spun as she slammed back into her body, recoiling instinctively. It always felt as if she was being shoved out of heaven.

  A hand fell on her shoulder, steadying her. “Are you all right?”

  She looked up to see a marine, his face worried. When had he entered the bridge? He hadn't been on it when she’d arrived, had he? She didn't think so, but she lost track of so much time when she interlinked directly with a computer core ...

  “I think so,” she said. She shook her head. There was no point in worrying about it. “I’ll need to get direct access to the classified datacore.”

  “Cool,” the marine said. He helped her to her feet. “Where is it?”

  Jayne shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. The core could be anywhere within the alien ship. For all she knew, it was under the captain’s bed. If the officers didn’t know - or refused to tell her - she would have to trace the datalinks herself. “But I’m going to have a lot of fun looking for it.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Comrade, we have come full circle.

  You argue in favour of an alliance. And most of your arguments are good ones. But consider - how can we expect aliens to join the Solar Union? They do not share the mindset of a Solarian! If many Earthers do not share the mindset - if we have to take strong action to remind the Earthers that they are guests in our universe- why should we expect more from aliens?

  This is not interspecies racism. This is a simple statement of fact. How can we trust them to play their role?

  -Solar Datanet, Political Forum (Grand Alliance Thoughts).

  Tyler snored.

  It wasn't something Levi found particularly annoying, in and of itself, but it grated on her after five days on the alien freighter. She shouldn't be that annoyed, she told herself - the barrack room habits of young marines weren't a subject for polite company - yet it still wore at her. But it was preferable, she supposed, to either reading the updated interstellar news, such as it was, or endless discussions that threatened to become arguments.

  She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her eyes as cold air blew over her naked body. She wasn't so much physically tired as mentally tired, her mind wanting to sleep even while her body was brimming with energy and wanted to run. The freighter did have plenty of space for her - and she didn't have to worry about accidentally breathing a poisonous atmosphere - but the ship’s captain had told her to stay in the cabin as much as possible. It was better, he said, that the crew had as little contact with them as possible. Levi rather suspected he hadn't told his crewmen just who or what they were carrying, trying to keep as much as possible of the carriage fee for himself. Human smugglers often did the same.

  Her implants bleeped up an alert as the freighter dropped out of FTL, then tried to download an updated status report from the local network. There was no response, something that bothered her more than she cared to admit. The freighter was well over three hundred years old, at least, but the computer network had been isolated and carefully secured. Her hacking programs hadn't been able to make any headway, even though they should have been able to slide effortlessly into a civilian-grade network. And while she wasn't a novice, she didn't have the skills necessary to hack the system herself.

  And now we don't know where we are, she thought, feeling a dull thrumming running through the freighter. She had a basic astrographic database in her implants, but no way to check it against the sensor readings. Her implants threw up a dozen different suggestions, ranging from their planned destination to an enemy naval base, yet had to admit they didn't know where they were. The crew might be preparing to hand us over to the enemy.

  She glanced at Tyler, then forced herself to relax. There was no reason to believe that they were in danger, even if she couldn't see outside. A human starship wouldn't allow a guest unrestricted access to a computer network either. And yet, she couldn't help feeling nervous as the freighter powered its way towards the gravity point - what she hoped was a gravity point. Too much could go wrong even if they weren't about to be betrayed.

  Picking up the datapad, she forced herself to read through the latest set of interstellar bulletins once again. There were hundreds of stories about ships being stopped and carefully searched - and about its devastating effects on interstellar trade - but no one seemed to know what was actually going on. A private intelligence service on Kami, of all places, had published an analysis suggesting that the Harmonies intended to tighten their grip on the cluster before building an empire of her own. Levi couldn't help thinking, as she read her way through it, that it was far too close to some of the analysis reports she'd read on Odyssey, before the shit hit the fan.

  No mention of us, she thought. And only vague third-hand reports of something unpleasant happening at Harmony.

  Shaking her head, she put the report aside. It was unlikely she’d find any new insights, let alone anything that would actually help her over the next few days. None of the Galactics seemed inclined to do more than protest loudly, although she rather doubted they’d be announcing anything more serious until they’d completed their mobilisation. If, of course, they were mobilising. If the Harmonies were working with the Tokomak to snatch a human starship, it was quite possible that the other Galactics were in on it too.

  And you’re going stir crazy, she told herself, firmly. You’re trapped in a tiny cabin. You don’t know what’s happening outside the hull.

  She pushed the thought aside, briefly contemplating waking Tyler for another round of sex before standing and dropping into a set of basic exercises. It hadn't been that long since she’d left Odyssey, but she still felt alarmingly flabby. She knew it was an illusion, she knew she was still in excellent shape, yet her mind refused to believe it. Major Rhodan would probably have a number of sarcastic remarks to make, when
he saw her again. She refused to contemplate the prospect of never seeing him again.

  There was a sharp rap on the hatch. Levi checked her weapons, automatically, as she came up from her crouch and paced towards the entrance. Resistance would probably be futile, if the ship had been boarded, but she was damned if she was going quietly. Tyler shifted, clearly on the verge of waking up. She nudged him to speed up the process and then keyed the hatch to open. Perhaps, she thought as the hatch unlocked, it was a good thing that the visitor had knocked. A hard-entry team would have made its entrance with shaped charges and noisemakers.

  “Captain,” she said, relaxing slightly as she saw the alien. “What can I do for you?”

  The alien captain - his name was beyond her ability to pronounce without a voder - seemed oddly put out by her nakedness. That was a surprise. The captain and his crew were all members of the same race, a hobbit-sized race of humanoid mice. Levi had even thought - and then buried it carefully at the back of her mind - that they’d hate to meet a race of humanoid cats! Indeed, they had always struck her as skittish. But the files made it clear that the little aliens were vicious bastards if pushed into a corner and forced to fight. Their teeth and claw-like hands weren't purely cosmetic.