by Cain Hopwood
“I think it’s the low gravity they’re enjoying more.”
“Indeed, it makes me wonder if your race’s lineage originates with the Pakmai. You seem at home here, just as they are. And, you are able to meld with a ship mind, at least some humans can.”
“I thought we were considered to be an orphan race.”
“So the survey records tell us. But, only races husbanded by the precursors can make a ship meld. Even then, barely one in ten of us are capable of it.”
The colonel decided to keep quiet about his men’s discomfort around the Galactic ships back on Marbel. Especially as all of them had complained about the whispering coming from the ships, which implied that more than one in ten of the unit might be able to meld like Moss.
Admiral Katona continued. “But with the precursors, anything is possible. They could world form, build starships. They created the ship fuel stations in the hearts of suns.”
The admiral trailed off, as if in thought. Or maybe, he was just catching his breath. Sergeant Sale closed up her gap, and they continued climbing in silence. It didn’t take long before the foliage thinned out, and they reached the canopy proper.
Moving across the treetops made for much easier going, and before long they’d reached the chamber wall.
“We’re here,” announced Moss over the tac-link. “At least, according to Ahm-Wat we are. Looks like just more wall to me. But, at least there’s no guards.”
With a few more branch to branch hops, Colonel Whitfield joined his lieutenant. Moss was standing on another huge branch. Like an outstretched arm it reached for the chamber wall, but didn’t quite manage to touch it.
Moss pointed. “It’s apparently just off the end of the branch.” The doubt in his voice was palpable.
“Where’s the hatch? How does it work?”
“No hatch, it’s a field set to mimic the wall. Apparently we jump through.”
“Really? What’s on the other side?”
Moss shrugged. “Ahm-Wat doesn’t know, he’s never used it.”
“So how does he know it’s actually there?”
Murdoch was crouching down, examining the branch close to the wall. “It’s been used colonel. Either that or the locals have been holding dance parties on this branch. It’s seen a lot of foot traffic.”
“Send a drone through,” the colonel said. “There could be anything, or anyone, behind that illusion.”
Moss nodded. “Skip, task a drone to fly through that wall. We want to see what’s on the other side.”
“On it, sir.”
Moments later a swallow drone hummed into sight. It approached the wall, but then pulled up short.
“Sorry sir. The swallow thinks there’s a wall there and won’t go through. I’ll have to switch to manual.”
While Skip was doing that, Colonel Whitfield tapped into the swallow’s image feed. The drone wobbled as Skip took manual control, then he flew it slowly straight at the wall.
And the little swallow drone disappeared.
Suddenly, instead of just a light gray panel, the colonel could see lots of open space, with a chaotic tangle of pipes, conduits, and cables. Then the view started spinning.
“Can you hold it steady,” the colonel said. “I want to get a good idea of what’s there.”
“Sorry sir, but I seem to have lost control.”
“How’s that, I’m still getting telemetry.”
“It’s not responding to control input. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Vacuum,” Moss said. “There’s no air on the other side, and it would seem no gravity either.”
“Well, it’s a way out.” The colonel looked at Moss. “Whoever uses this must have a way back into the transit tube system.”
“I’ll check it out.” The lieutenant turned toward Skip. “Recall all the swallows, they won’t do us any good on the other side. Gowlett, Ingles, you two with me. We’re clearing the far side.”
The two men formed up on Moss. They hefted their carbines, and with a couple of bounds launched themselves off the end of the branch, flew through the air towards the wall, and disappeared into the seemingly solid surface.
— 57 —
Jon floated. He’d flinched when he went through the chamber wall. It was hardly to be expected, every reflex in his body said he was about to hit, and hit hard. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d sailed straight through, and like the little swallow drone before him, started slowly rotating.
But that wasn’t hard to fix. His hand went to his belt, and with a couple of taps he had his spin arrested. He was finally starting to get the hang of the harness impulse controls.
Skip and Kryspin had already stabilized and were looking around. There wasn’t much to see. Still, that was a good sign, it meant that the exit didn’t seem to be guarded.
He opened a tac-link channel to the colonel. “Looks all clear, sir. Give us a few minutes to scout around, if we see anything, we’ll yell.”
“Copy that Moss.”
Jon swiveled, getting a good look at the space he was in. Considering that this gap between the chambers was for the utilities servicing the starship’s habitation chambers, the space was huge. He felt like a housefly clinging to the wall of a skyscraper’s lift well. The whole area was lit by the same bright tube in the roof of the last chamber. It must have run the full length of the starship, even burning out here where the heat and light went unused. These Galactics had more energy than they knew what to do with.
Immediately below them was something that had to be a transit tube. It was huge. “Skip, check out the other side of that tube, make sure there’s no guards lurking.”
“Copy sir.”
“Gowlett, help him out. I’ll hold the fort here.”
Within a few minutes, they’d confirmed that the area was clear.
“Colonel this side is clear of guards, you can come through. Let’s hope the admiral can make more sense of this confusing place than I can.”
Jon moved farther away from the wall, clearing space for the rest of the squad, who came through in twos and threes. Bakowski was the last of the humans through, after which Ahm-Wat and the other Chonai joined them.
After a moment of floating, the admiral pointed towards the light tube. Colonel Whitfield moved close, and they had a brief discussion. Then the colonel opened an all hands tac-link channel. “Listen up everyone. The nexus, where we’re headed, is in the middle of the starship. Between this next chamber, and the one beside it. The chambers are about ten clicks square. We’re going to go around the boundary of the chambers, and stay in these utility spaces until we’re close.”
Bakowski looked around. “This is crowded, it would be easier to move in the open chamber.”
“Which would be a good idea, if it wasn’t also the main residential space on the starship. There’s more guards there than anywhere else.”
Bakowski nodded. “Sir, what about air? How long can these harnesses last?”
Everyone looked to the colonel, who rolled his eyes. “If you people read your briefs, you’d know this. A standard harness will supply you with air for about two hours in complete vacuum. We’ve just come out of atmosphere, so they’ll be full.”
Bakowski’s eyes glazed as she did the math. Then she looked around the chaotic space and pulled a face. “Even with the impulse controls, we’re going to have to move, and move fast.”
And move fast they did.
She led, setting a blistering pace following directions from the colonel, who was in constant contact with Admiral Katona. The speed itself wasn’t physically taxing, the harness impulse controls provided plenty of motive force, but with no guidance or collision avoidance, it fell to each soldier to fly themselves around each and every obstacle.
But, this wasn’t like regular flying. They had to use the impulse controls for every change of direction and attitude adjustment. At the speed they were traveling, it required laser like concentration, or they faced mashing themselves into walls, pipe
s or conduits.
They headed towards the middle of the starship, flying along in the interstitial space between the wall of the chamber they’d just left, and the next chamber forward. The inertial guidance in their implants was useless here. It assumed gravity of course, and without it, had them continuously accelerating ‘down’ at nine point eight meters per second. So they navigated by dead reckoning.
Like a lost airman following roads, they followed the transit tube near where they’d emerged. Without gravity providing a sense of ‘down’, only the transit tube they were following, and the light source up ahead, kept their confused sense of direction from leading them astray. After what seemed like an age of dodging secondary pipes, bracing members, and conduits, the wall of the chamber to their left disappeared, and they found themselves directly under the tube that provided heat and light to the starship’s habitation chambers.
They were floating in the middle of a T-intersection of sorts. The habitation chamber filled with verdant jungle continued on their right, but at right angles to it, and directly under the light tube, was another interstitial space. It was delineated by the walls of the two smaller chambers forward, and it was completely different to the one they’d been traveling through.
For one thing, there wasn’t a pipe or brace to be seen, the whole space was open. Way off in the distance, Jon could see a single structure that stretched between the two walls. It was difficult to make out, because it seemed to be surrounded by a floating debris field.
“What’s that?” he asked.
It took the colonel a moment of consultation with Katona before he could answer. “The Doyenne.” Was all he said.
“The what?”
“The Doyenne. It… She, lives in the starship. In many ways she is the starship, well, she runs most of its systems at least. Like that mind does in the ship you flew here.”
Jon pulled up his spotting scope. Close up, the mass in the middle of the space between the chambers looked like a giant purple sneeze. Not a pretty sight.
“So someone melds with that?” he asked.
“That’s the centarch’s primary purpose, giving The Doyenne direction, just like you did with that ship on the way here.”
The ever practical Bakowski butted in. “Well, at least it’ll be a quick trip there.”
“Hold that thought,” said the colonel. “It’s apparently disrespectful to enter The Doyenne’s space uninvited.”
“Disrespectful? I don’t believe it.” Bakowski’s lip curled up. “We’re here to do the centarch in, and the admiral is worrying about being disrespectful.”
“Only to The Doyenne.”
“Oh, well that makes more sense I guess. I suppose the nexus is in the middle of that mess?”
Jon scanned the space with his spotting scope. “Yes, but it’s almost completely covered in purple. There’s access ways that lead in from both habitation chambers, so I’m guessing we’ll get in via one of those.”
Colonel Whitfield leaned in close to Katona, and had a lengthy discussion with the admiral. There was a lot of gesturing and pointing. By the look of it, he was attempting to convince the admiral that they should just fly straight up to The Doyenne.
Eventually he pulled away, lips pressed tightly together. “I can’t persuade him to use the direct route. But there is an alternative. The chamber on the right is sparsely populated, all transit tube access was cut off several years ago, so the access ways from it to the nexus will only be lightly guarded.”
“A back door huh?” said Bakowski. “This is sounding suspiciously like Venezuela.”
“Let’s hope not,” the colonel said.
Murdoch leaned in, merging his clima-field with Jon’s so only they could speak. “What happened in Venezuela lieutenant?”
Jon’s voice was grim. “You don’t want to know. But Bakowski has been wary of unguarded back doors ever since. If we get out of this, I’ll tell you the story. I’ll need a few drinks first though, it’s not one you want to hear sober.”
Still, to Bakowski’s credit she knuckled down and got them all moving. They crossed the invitingly open area leading directly to their target. Then, like rats in the walls afraid to be exposed in the open, they disappeared back into the tighter spaces filled with pipes the size of sky-scrapers, braces as big as freight trains and hundreds of snaky, vine like conduits.
Jon, covering the group’s rear, was one of the last to go. He took one final look at the mass of purple globules far in the distance, and couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking back at him.
— 58 —
“I say we just blow the doors,” said Ingles. “Then we’ll get rid of those couple of wee guards for free. We should use something big, this place could do with redecoration anyway.”
Jon sneaked a glance over the dusty window ledge, and through the gaping ragged hole where a window used to be. Someone had removed the window, and without too much care for what condition they’d left the building in afterwards. Ingles was right, this chamber had seen better days, much better days.
“We do that, and everyone in the nexus will know we’re here,” Jon said. “And we don’t want that.”
“Aye but…”
“Just sit tight, keep an eye on them. The guards change every quarter watch, it shouldn’t be long now. We stick to the plan.”
The guard post they were observing was over half a kilometer away. Jon, Peggy Sale and Ingles had climbed a nearby building, so they had a good tactical view of both the post, and the surrounding area. If push came to shove, and they had to take the guards out, It was also a good position to provide fire support from.
The two Ka-Li at the post were guarding the doors to the one remaining access way between this chamber, and the nexus. At some point there’d been a building in front of the doors, but that had been destroyed and its remains collected in a pile. As the doors could only be opened from the inside, the main purpose the two guards outside served, was to ensure the exit was clear should anyone come out. Also, presumably to stop people like Ingles having their way with the doors themselves. Admiral Katona was aware of this little used access way, but he didn’t know what the protocol was for the guard change. So, they were stuck waiting for the next pair of guards to arrive to open the doors for them.
After a couple of hours of waiting, Ingles’s preference to use explosives was starting to look more and more attractive. The problem with that idea though, was that leaving the door open, or breaking it completely, would undoubtedly appear on a control board somewhere in the nexus’s operations floor. And that would bring company.
So they waited. Which gave Bakowski and Murdoch plenty of time to sneak as close as possible to the guard post without being seen.
“Watch it Bakowski. They can see up that alley.”
“Copy Murdoch. Any way around?”
“Not an easy one, I’ll distract them. Copy Skip?”
“Go ahead.”
“You’ve got a dormant swallow on the far side of the guards don’t you?”
“I do. But it’s got a job.”
“I know, but can you give me a burst of impeller power from it? I need half power for about a quarter of a second.”
“What’s that going to do? It won’t even get off the ground.”
“No, but it’ll sound like a kartak clearing sand from its nostrils.”
“A what?”
“Just get it ready.”
This should be interesting, thought Jon. He brought up the feed from another swallow drone, placed to provide imagery down the access way for when the door eventually opened. At the moment, all it showed was the two guards sitting on a pair of makeshift stools. They didn’t look particularly alert.
“Skip, are you ready?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Count us in.”
“Quarter second burst in three… two… one… burst.”
Right on cue the two guards straightened and their heads snapped to the left. They held that position
for several seconds, then relaxed, going back to what they’d been doing. They probably hadn’t even realized that the distraction had been engineered.
A moment later, Bakowski came over the tac-link. “Colonel, we’re in position. We’re as close as we’re going to get.”
“Copy that. How far out are you?”
“Thirty five meters. Five seconds from the doors at full pelt.”
“Right, it’ll have to do. Be ready, you won’t get much warning. Whitfield out.”
A slow and tedious half hour passed before anything happened. Jon had relieved Peggy, who was taking a rest. Squinting through a scope and holding a state of constant readiness, wasn’t easy to do long. But when one guard stood and stretched, Jon’s alertness level jumped.
Jon opened an all hands tac-link channel. “We’ve got movement.”
He heard a rustle as Peggy took up her firing position again. “On station,” she said.
Below them, the two guards were packing up the makeshift stools they’d been sitting on.
“They’re an undisciplined pair,” said Peggy. “I thought these Ka-Li were super soldiers. The sarge would chew us out if we were that slovenly on guard.”
“Don’t forget, these are ship’s guards,” said Jon without taking his eye off his scope. “They’re more like city cops than soldiers.”
“So what’s the plan, sir?”
Jon thought for a second, their job was to clear the way for Bakowski’s and Murdoch’s sprint for the door. “I’ll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. Then we both try and drop any coming out in the doorway itself. That should stop it closing.”
They didn’t have long to wait. One guard lifted a hand to his com-pod, hopefully giving the all clear signal to whoever was on the other side of the door.
The tac-link crackled in Jon’s implant. “This is it people, you know your jobs. Wait for the go/no go,” Colonel Whitfield said.
Both guards did a slow and careful scan of their surroundings. Jon centered his targeting reticle on his targeted guard.