The Long Road Home (A Learning Experience Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “Human,” the captain said. He hadn't bothered to ask for her name, even the fake name and background she’d prepared. She guessed she was paying him enough to keep from asking inconvenient questions. “Dress quickly, spacesuits and robes. This ship is going to be boarded.”

  Levi cursed, then spun around and poked Tyler, hard. The younger man jumped up, one hand reaching for the gun he’d concealed at the head of the makeshift bed. Levi caught his arm before he could do anything stupid, then helped him up. Tyler looked shocked at how effortlessly she lifted him.

  “Get dressed,” she hissed, reaching for her underwear. Thankfully, the marines had taught her how to dress quickly. “Run a wakefulness program, if necessary. We’re about to be boarded.”

  “Their shuttle is already inbound,” the alien captain said. “You have to be hidden on the hull.”

  Tyler stared at the alien. “They’re searching the whole ship?”

  “So we have been told,” the alien captain said. His furry nose twitched. Levi’s implants told her that that was an alien smile. “The other freighters in the system are complaining loudly.”

  “Shit,” Tyler said. He looked at Levi. “Where are we?”

  “Paean,” the alien captain said. “One transit from Daladier and the Harmonies Chain.”

  Levi didn't need to consult her implants, as she donned her shipsuit and checked her helmet, to know where they were. Paean linked directly to Daladier, which was - in itself - one transit from Hudson. They were nearly there ... assuming, of course, they didn't get detected by the enemy. She had no idea if the Harmonies were searching ships passing through Daladier itself - there was no way Hudson Base could avoid noticing that something was happening - but they were definitely in position to search ships at Paean.

  “If you’re on the hull, you can remain undetected,” the alien captain informed them. He turned and led them out of the cabin as soon as they were dressed. A couple of other crewmen stepped past them into the cabin, carrying spray bottles and storage bags. “But you have to stay out of direct line-of-sight.”

  “Understood,” Levi said. She looked at the captain’s back as he hurried down towards the nearest airlock. “Can I have access to your computer network?”

  The alien seemed to flinch. “For the duration of the search, using direct contact nodes,” he said, reluctantly. “But not elsewhere.”

  “Very well,” Levi said. “Thank you.”

  She tried to make contact again and succeeded. The alien network was cruder than she’d expected, once she was allowed through the firewall, but it was advanced enough to pick out the shuttlecraft approaching from the local defences. Two gunboats escorted it, their active sensors sweeping space for potential targets. The crudeness of the intimidation surprised her, but the mice-like aliens weren't considered great powers. No doubt the Harmonies thought they could push them around at will.

  Potential allies, then, she thought. The aliens might not be a great power, but they were known for their engineering skills. Given freedom to innovate and unlimited resources, who knew what they’d devise? But we have to survive the coming search first.

  She forced herself to think as the captain opened the airlock, motioning for them to enter the tiny compartment. If the Harmonies merely checked their paperwork and then allowed the ship to proceed ... that was one thing. But a more careful search might just turn up evidence of human occupation. A sniffer drone might even pick up traces of human DNA. She smiled, remembering the clean-up crew. The evidence there were humans on the ship would be buried long before the searchers started making their way through the ship.

  “Stay close to the hull,” she reminded Tyler. She clamped a line to his suit as the outer hatch opened, revealing unblinking stars burning in the inky darkness of interplanetary space. If there were any alien ships in visual range, neither her naked eyes nor her implants could pick them out against the stars. “Don’t speak unless you’re using a linked cable. One stray transmission and we’re dead.”

  She glanced down at her suit - coloured to match the hull - and then led the way out of the airlock. Hopefully, any wandering eyes would miss them as long as they stayed still, crouched next to the communications array. She’d used enough camouflage netting during exercises to know it was very effective, as long as the wearer stayed still. The human eye was attracted towards motion.

  And so are most alien eyes, she mused. But not all of them.

  It was a sobering thought. She’d heard a story, years ago, of how a camouflage scheme had failed because it had been configured to defeat human eyes. To the aliens, the marines might as well have been dressed in clown costumes and blowing trumpets as they tried to sneak up on their enemies. It hadn't been much consolation to the survivors to know that the aliens had had the same problem ...

  An alert flashed up in front of her eyes. An alien gunboat was coming in for a visual inspection of the hull. She clutched Tyler’s hand, warning him to remain very still as the craft glided into view, a dark shape only visible as it occluded the stars. It was small, compared to the freighter, but she had no doubt it could cripple the ship if its crew decided to open fire. She stared at it, wondering what would happen if they were spotted ... would the aliens send troops to snatch them or merely open fire?

  The gunboat drifted away, moving with deceptive slowness. Levi watched it go, then cursed under her breath as the alien shuttle appeared, gliding down towards the airlock. That was unexpected. Most inspectors would enter through the forward hatch, the closest to the bridge ... she silently willed Tyler to stay still as the aliens docked, their inspectors flooding into the freighter. Perhaps they thought the crew were hiding something ... or perhaps they were just trying to be annoying. She found it hard to care.

  She forced herself to monitor their progress through the ship’s sensors. One party went to the bridge, where they inspected the ship’s crew and their papers; the other started to search the ship, prowling through each and every cabin with a thoroughness she couldn't recall seeing from the Solar Union’s customs officers. But then, very little was actually banned within the Solar Union. She was fairly sure there were people who would want something illicit, just because it was banned, but they would probably prefer to leave the Solar Union and make the transfer somewhere in interstellar space. Here ...

  They’re going through all the shipping crates, she thought, grimly. They must have realised how we escaped Kami.

  She felt her body start to ache, even though she could move a little within the suit without calling attention to herself. The Harmonies were being very careful ... she couldn't help wondering, if they were dedicating so much attention to a single freighter, just how badly they’d slowed down traffic through the gravity point. They didn't have any reason to think the freighter was smuggling humans or they would have brought more troops, just to make sure the ship didn't have a hope of escaping. And while she knew they were assholes, they weren't foolish enough to waste time being assholes when they had a job to do.

  Pity, that, she thought. Forcing them to waste time might be useful.

  She glanced at the stream of messages pouring into the ship’s communications array. Some of them were encrypted, but enough were in clear to prove that the Harmonies were searching every ship. Passage through the gravity point had slowed to a trickle ... a constant barrage of complaints was being passed around the system, to no avail. She didn't have access to the gravimetric sensors, but she was fairly sure dozens of freighters were choosing to slip back into FTL and go the long way around, just to avoid the searchers. She couldn't blame them.

  An alert flashed in front of her eyes. The enemy searchers were coming onto the hull! Cold ice ran down her spine as she looked towards the rear airlock, spotting three aliens in spacesuits stepping onto the hull. She glanced at Tyler, then turned her attention back to the aliens. They’d be discovered if they tried to move away from the communications array ...

  She pressed her hand into Tyler’s. “Stay still,”
she muttered. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  Sweat prickled down her back as the aliens advanced, looking from side to side as they walked up towards their shuttle. There was nowhere to run ... she briefly contemplated trying to crawl backwards until they had the mass of the freighter between them and the hunters, but she knew they’d be far too exposed. All she could do was remain still and pray they weren't spotted.

  Their eyes aren't noticeably better than ours, she told herself. But they could have augmented them too.

  The aliens marched closer, pausing just long enough to look at the communications array, then strode past, heading back to their shuttle. Levi let out a breath, feeling a surge of utterly overpowering relief. She’d concealed herself close to enemy camps before, close enough that she’d watched in horror as guards relieved themselves far too close to her, but this was different. She could have stabbed two of the aliens, perhaps three, before they overwhelmed and killed her. And even if she did manage to kill the entire squad, their friends would just slam a missile into the freighter and kill them all.

  She tracked the aliens as they boarded their shuttle and disconnected, gliding slowly away into the darkness. Her entire body was drenched in sweat, but they were alive! They hadn't been caught! The freighter’s drives hummed to life a second later, taking them deeper into the system. They’d be passing through the gravity point in less than an hour.

  “Come on,” she said, leading Tyler back to the airlock. Their air supplies wouldn't hold out indefinitely. “We’d better find out what happened.”

  The captain met them as they removed their helmets. “They checked everything,” he said, shortly. Levi couldn't help thinking that he looked like a mouse that had been dropped in water and was still dripping on the carpet. “And insisted on scanning all our papers before allowing us to proceed.”

  Tyler glanced at him. “But we can proceed into Daladier?”

  “Yes,” the captain said. His nose lowered itself, seeming to lengthen as he bowed his furry head. “But what we’ll find there ...”

  “We’ll find out when we get there,” Levi said. “Until then ...”

  She grinned at Tyler. “We’re nearly home,” she added. Hudson Base wasn't home, she had to admit, but it was the closest place to home for thousands of light years. Humans ... and a naval squadron that might be able to help Odyssey. Humanity would know what had happened to her. “And then we can pass on our message.”

  “I hope so,” Tyler said. He leaned against the bulkhead, looking wretched. “What happens if they search the ship again?”

  “We hide again,” Levi said. “And we do a better job of it this time.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  We trust them because it is in their interests to support us, just as it is in our interests to support them.

  Aliens are not stupid. Nor, save for the really old races, are they so ossified that the thought of talking to a young race like us is unthinkable. They are more than capable of recognising that we are the key to victory, to freedom ... even to simple survival. Let us work with them to build a force that will be small, but powerful enough to give even the Tokomak pause!

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

  “The good news,” Jayne said, “is that I found the classified datacore. It was concealed within the captain’s cabin, disguised as a rather dubious piece of alien artwork. The bad news is that there’s almost nothing of value within the datacore.”

  Elton leaned forward. “Are you sure?”

  “There’s nothing of value to us, at the moment,” Jayne clarified. “I can download and decrypt a great many files on everything from ship movements to access codes and routine fleet updates, Captain, but there are no political briefs or anything that might help us to understand what is actually going on.”

  Rebecca frowned. “Are you sure? I mean ... have you probed every last section of the datacore?”

  “Not completely,” Jayne said. “The RIs are dissecting the remaining sections now, Madam Ambassador, but if there’s anything outside confidential ship and fleet management files it’s very well hidden. We do understand this sort of system very well. Any files that were routinely accessed, regardless of their classification, would be located very easily. I don’t believe we’ve missed any files that were accessed in the last year.”

  Elton studied the display for a long moment. “Do you think there were other datacores that were never attached to the ship’s datanet?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Jayne said. “But if it was never attached to the system, there wouldn't be any record of it. I’ve got the RI’s vacuuming King Hakim XIII’s datanet for signs there was a datacore that was hooked up once or twice before being disconnected again, but ...”

  She gave an expressive shrug. “So far, zilch,” she said. “I did have the marines tear the captain’s cabin apart, looking for a private datacore, but they found nothing.”

  “It would be very well concealed,” Elton mused. Keeping a private datacore was not - technically - forbidden in the Solar Navy, as long as it didn't contain classified data, but it was frowned upon. The Galactics, by contrast, banned the whole practice. Given how little privacy the average citizen had on Harmony, he would be surprised if anyone dared to obtain their own datacore. “And probably non-existent.”

  He looked down at his hands. “We’ll need to get answers from the ship’s captain, if we can,” he said. “There’s no other solution.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jayne said.

  Rebecca coughed. “When you say we need to get answers,” she said, “what exactly do you mean?”

  “I don’t know, yet,” Elton admitted. “It depends on how willing he is to cooperate.”

  He keyed his wristcom. “Major Rhodan, please have the alien captain moved to an interrogation chamber and secured,” he ordered. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Rebecca looked appalled. “Captain, he surrendered!”

  “I know,” Elton said. “And I know we have an obligation to treat prisoners well, within reason. But the safety of this ship and crew comes first.”

  He rose. “Shall we go find out what he has to say?”

  ***

  Rebecca silently reviewed the rules on handling prisoners of war as she followed Captain Yasser down to the interrogation chamber, trying to determine what was and what wasn't legal. It wasn't something she’d had occasion to look up, in the past. The Solar Union’s regulations, she discovered, were a little vague. POWs were meant to be treated well, as long as they behaved, but a great deal depended on how their country - or interstellar power - treated prisoners. She didn't think she liked that, even though she understood the chilling logic. Repaying an atrocity in kind, according to the files, helped prevent further atrocities.

  And the Harmonies would have killed us all, just to keep their secrets, she thought. What reason do we have, then, to be nice to our captives?

  She shook her head as she stepped into the observation compartment. The idea of forcing an alien to talk was horrific. Everything from direct neural access to simple torture struck her as horrific. And yet, the secrets concealed within the alien’s head might make the difference between life and death. Should her principles stand in the way of extracting useful data?

  It’s a lot easier to make such a choice, she told herself morbidly, when nearly a thousand lives don’t hang on the decision.

  The alien was seated at a table, his hands and feet cuffed to the chair. It looked uncomfortable - it had to be uncomfortable. And yet, the alien seemed perfectly at ease, his dark eyes boring into the bulkhead as if he knew they were on the other side of it. Perhaps he did, she told herself. Interrogation chambers looked very similar right across the galaxy, even for races that were anything but humanoid.

  She watched as Captain Yasser stepped into the chamber and took the seat on the other side of the table, leaning forward to meet the alien’s eyes. The alien stared back at him
evenly, even though he’d been stripped of his silver robe. Rebecca had a feeling that the Harmonies hated being underdressed. Even the rioters who’d nearly killed her had been covered from head to toe.

  “We don't have a proper baseline for his species,” Jayne said. Rebecca jumped. She’d been so focused on the alien that she hadn't noticed Jayne entering the observation chamber. “It won't be easy to tell if he’s lying for a while.”

  Rebecca glanced at her. “I thought that lie detectors were perfect.”

  “They are, for humans,” Jayne said. “We know how human bodies and minds work, Madam Ambassador. We know how they react when someone tells a lie. But here ... we don’t know enough about the Harmonies to pick out a lie. Not yet. Give us a few weeks and we might just have a working baseline.”