by Tony Daniel
The Guardian of Night drifted nearby, silent.
Not a threat. Coalbridge was amazed at the realization. A possible ally.
She’s waiting for my signal.
Take care of the threat first.
No sign of Powers of Heaven was to be seen.
“Is she gone? SIGINT, report!” Coalbridge said. “Did we blow her to pieces?”
“There!” It was Katapodis, the helmsman. He was pointing to a shining fleck at three o’clock, halfway up the dome of the night.
Coalbridge ordered them toward her. He had no more weaponry. All systems were on emergency power and all resources diverted to life support.
He had no DAFNE.
His DAFNE.
His friend of six years.
His sister in arms.
Gone.
As it turned out, no weapons or defenses were necessary.
The Powers of Heaven would not fight again.
Half of her had practically been turned inside out by the nukes. There was an enormous hole in her forward hull and an “exit wound” with metal flowering outward in a gaping eruption on the other side. Photonic flickers surrounded the damaged edges, delimiting a boundary that the vessel Q was attempting to regenerate, but having no luck. She’d poured her insides into space. One look told Coalbridge all he needed to know. Except for a few zombie systems, her computers were blown. Her crew was a puddle against the bulkheads. No one had been thrown clear. He knew, but ordered a cursory sensor sweep just in case.
There were no rescue beacons, no activated officer bottles on the beta sensors.
The Powers of Heaven was a dead craft.
“How do you like that, XO,” whispered Coalbridge. To himself. To the empty air. “We won.”
TWENTY
19 January 2076
Vara Nebula
USX Joshua Humphreys
“Sir, we’re going to have a problem with the Guardian heliox environment. It’s a twelve-fifty-two mix, with a hundred-five p.s.i. atmosphere,” said Lieutenant Nguen, the marine from the craft contingent who handled physically equipping assault teams on sceeve vessels or, in this case, a contact team.
The double whammy of breathing at high atmospheric pressure, thought Coalbridge. You stay in that sceeve air, it sends you into nitrogen psychosis within a minute or so. You leave without hours of decompression, and the bends will kill you.
“We’ll stay with the rebreathers and pressurized uniforms, then work into a compression schedule to put key personnel on sceeve pressure,” said Coalbridge. “The Humphreys is leaking like a sieve, and we wouldn’t have the air to flush and replace the sceeve gas if we brought them over here.” He smiled. “Besides, what would be the fun of that?”
“I’ll work out the protocols, sir, and inform the affected crew. They’ll bitch about fairness, because the big ones will need to stay in the chamber longer. It will be based on body mass.”
Coalbridge nodded. “Set it up.” He’d always hated close-quarters fighting with a rebreather over his face and a ballooned and stiffened uniform suit—the churn in the Extry uniform fabric would make it into a pressure suit for a few hours at a time. During a few engagements, he’d had sufficient warning to ramp his special-force marines up in a hyperbaric chamber and inject them completely adapted to breathe sceeve air, which was, of course, breathable by humans if they were ready for the enormous pressures of sceeve enclosures. He’d never done it himself, however. Maybe he’d finally get his chance soon—but not yet. So rebreathers and balloon suits it was.
Time to float over through the converted assault tube the marines had set up as a docking corridor. He would take Leher with him. Four heavily armed marines. And that would be it.
With DAFNE gone, he’d moved his VISOR, the vessel internal-systems division officer-in-charge, Lieutenant Commander Matty Taras, to XO and given him a field promotion to commander. He’d leave Taras in command of the Humphreys while he was away.
While I’m away having tea and cookies with a fucking sceeve skipper, Coalbridge thought.
Taras had standing orders to destroy the Guardian of Night at the slightest sign she was going belligerent.
Which meant killing Coalbridge and his team.
Always nice to have an element of mortal danger with your refreshments, Coalbridge thought. And the chance to beat the sceeve with their own stick if you happened to survive.
The Guardian of Night
The large-eyed sceeve looked down at him. He was a bit taller than Coalbridge’s six two, but he did not tower over Coalbridge.
And I have him on bulk, Coalbridge thought. Dude is skinny as a reed.
“Captain Ricimer?” said Coalbridge. Leher’s converted Palace took in the words, translated them to esters, and sprayed out the results from its small chemistry lab shaped like a drugstore “travel can” of hairspray. Crude and, as Leher said, “the esters probably smell like caveman talk to a sceeve,” but it seemed to work. The scent of musk and oranges pervaded the heliox of the airlock.
The slightest ammonia tang in the air. A soft reply, thought Coalbridge. It wasn’t like you were being squirted with pepper spray or anything. Coalbridge reflected that most of the other sceeve language he’d smelled had been sceeve shouting to be “heard” over a riot of other voices during a firefight.
The translator spoke a soft phrase in a rich baritone. “You are from Sol system?”
“Yes, sir. I am Captain James Coalbridge of the United States Extry. My country of affiliation is a nation located on Sol C in this system.”
Another ammonia-like odor, this one subtly different—but how, Coalbridge couldn’t have said. He looked at Leher, who nodded as if he understood.
“The United States of America, yes. It is a moment of blooming possibilities to meet you,” said the device. “Trembling promise clings to our shoulders like a cloud.”
“Yes,” Coalbridge answered. “That is, I think I see what you mean.” He shot Leher a quizzical look. Was he missing something?
“Have to fine-tune the box,” Leher murmured. “It’s a traditional friendly greeting, nothing more. Means something like ‘Pleased to meet you. I hope we can be friends.’”
“Ah.” He turned back to Ricimer, who had been waiting patiently for his reply. “Pleased to meet you, too, Captain Ricimer. My vessel and I are at your service.”
Ricimer cocked his head to the right then to the left—body language that meant . . . what? Yes and no? Maybe? Something like that? Leher had tried to fill him in on the details, but Leher himself had pretty sketchy knowledge. And if Leher didn’t know, likely no human did.
Then the translator box spoke again. “Captain Coalbridge, my officers and I would like to request political asylum with your government.” Coalbridge replayed what he’d just heard in his mind again to be sure he’d heard it right. Yes.
“Asylum?”
“My crew and passengers are refugees from an ongoing massacre occurring in my home habitat. They do not request formal asylum since they have little to offer in return, but request temporary sanctuary in your system, and would like to discuss possible resettlement in the vicinity.”
Ricimer raised a hand, gesturing at his surroundings. “Furthermore, to support our request for political asylum, my officers and I would like to deliver to you, as the representative of your government, this vessel, A.S.C. Guardian of Night, along with its accoutrements, supplies, and weaponry. This vessel now belongs to your government.”
Beside Coalbridge, Leher let out a little chuckle. “Holy shit,” Leher said. “The Poet was telling the truth.”
Coalbridge shook his head, cleared ammonia fumes. He looked around at the alien vessel. Technology. Information in the computers. Tactics and strategies of warfighting. Cultural information. Lists of enemies.
If.
If they got this craft back to Walt Whitman station for analysis. If they then had time.
The sceeve armada was bearing down on Earth.
With time, a hu
ndred teams could swarm the Guardian. Break it down. Analyze it. Reverse engineer—everything.
If.
“Captain Ricimer, on behalf of the United States government and its president and commander in chief, I accept your offer,” said Coalbridge. “Captain, I don’t know if you are aware of it, but the Guardian armada is approaching Sol system at this very moment.”
“I am aware of this. I also suspect the vessel you have destroyed has eliminated my hoped-for Mutualist rendezvous craft. That is likely how he discovered these coordinates. You, on the other hand, also found me—so the Poet’s hidden communiqué was successful?”
“The Poet was acting on your behalf, I take it?”
“He was to deliver our rendezvous information to you in a fairly simple analog code,” Ricimer answered. “I was convinced that you humans would monitor his beta broadcasts if you were at all aware of them. They are very different from the usual Sporata beta chatter, are they not?”
“Very,” Leher muttered.
“The Sporata has long been aware of the Poet’s activities but had been unable to capture him. I was able to locate him with the aid of my Mutualist contacts. After that, it was a matter of convincing him to aid us. Not a difficult task after I told him about the Kilcher artifact. And so he delivered the message to you.”
“Yes. Personally,” Leher said, louder this time.
Ricimer turned to him.
“This is Lieutenant Commander Griffin Leher, my chief sceeve—” Coalbridge corrected himself quickly. “—my Guardian specialist. He personally spoke with Gitaclaber.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Ricimer. Leher’s tweaked box must’ve translated the long spiel correctly this time, Coalbridge thought. “I’m well aware of the pejorative term you humans use for my kind. I understand if you wish to continue using it.”
“What’s he mean, Leher?” Coalbridge asked.
“He’s saying it’s all right to call him a sceeve. In fact, he rather agrees with its meaning. Am I right, Captain Ricimer?”
Ricimer made a motion that combined a head nod to the right with a shrug. “That’s right,” he said. So, a nod “yes” is that weird shrug, Coalbridge thought. At least the sceeve had body language to pick up on, even if it wasn’t humanlike in any manner. Useful to know.
“And Gitaclaber lives?” Ricimer asked.
“Unfortunately, no,” said Leher. Leher briefly explained the rescue of Japps and Gitaclaber from the lifepod.
“I understand,” said Ricimer, again with the shrug and head tilt. Definitely a nod. “Too bad, for both the young officer and for us. He was an odd one, but with a true gid and a sharp thought process. He was a great resource.”
“Sir, I hate to press, but we are needed back in the solar system. Our solar system, I mean.”
Ricimer gave another sceeve nod. “Of course,” he replied. “I too am pressed, not by time but by numbers. I have on board nearly one thousand refugees, including many children. I do not wish to carry these into harm’s way. I would like to find a suitable place to deposit them while we warriors . . . do what we must do.”
“I will attempt to arrange it as soon as we’re in beta range, sir,” said Coalbridge. Great, another huge problem, he thought. But not mine for once, thank God.
In fact, his problems were now decidedly nonstrategic and mostly had to do with patching up and flying his own craft. Which was exactly the way he liked things.
“Thank you, Captain. I suppose now we’ll find out if my leap of faith has been justified,” Ricimer replied. It sounded like dry humor, and Coalbridge decided to take it as such.
“Or whether we’ve cut it so close we all crash and burn,” Coalbridge said. “Speaking of the armada . . . do you have a plan for what we might do when they get here?”
The nostril flaps on Ricimer’s . . . well, you couldn’t really call it a “nose.” It looked most like the muzzle of a bulldog or a bat. The flaps of Ricimer’s muzzle vibrated.
A half second later, the translator box let out a low laugh.
“Excellent,” Leher muttered to himself, but loud enough for Coalbridge to pick up what he was saying. “Good throughput on the undertones and speech coloration.”
So it really was Ricimer’s laugh.
“I have a few ideas about tactics,” Ricimer replied, “but my larger goal was and has always been the same.”
“What’s that?”
“Why, to ask you humans to make a clever use of the Kilcher artifact, of course,” Ricimer said. “I know from experience that you’re very good at that, and I could think of no other solution for what to do with the artifact this vessel carries as a weapon, once its destructive potential became clear to me. The Administration must not be permitted to possess it or have time to analyze and duplicate whatever technology or science it employs.”
Great, Coalbridge thought. That’s been the way of it for the past twelve years anyway. Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.
So, improvise.
“All right, Captain, let’s get to it. Last beta reports I have—these are a day old, so I’m not entirely confident in their accuracy—put the sceeve armada at two days out from Sol, traveling at 100 c.”
A pause for translation.
Another sceeve laugh.
“Yes,” said Ricimer. “That would be about the speed Blawfus would think prudent. I expect he’ll maintain it.”
“We are eighteen and a half hours from Sol inner system at maximum velocity,” Coalbridge said.
Six hours. That was the lead time they were inexorably stuck with. That is, assuming—
“Your craft does 900 c maximum, does she?”
Ricimer took a half step back. Looked for all the world like a human gesture of offense taken. Had he just effectively called the Guardian a garbage scow?
“Of course she does,” Ricimer said.
Six hours.
“Then we need to get our asses back to Earth.”
“My crew and I are at your service.”
“Well, okay, then,” Coalbridge said. He shook his head in amazement. Two months ago, if someone had told him . . . any of this . . .
No, it would’ve been impossible almost to conceive.
“One thing’s for sure,” Coalbridge continued, “whatever happens next should be interesting.”
20 January 2076
Earth Orbit
Walt Whitman atation
Walt Whitman station was a supply dump at heart. Its most eminent visitors until now had been fleet admirals passing through, outbound for the big asteroid fortresses or inbound planetside. So despite the fact that this was without a doubt the biggest ceremonial moment in the station’s history, there was not much Station Chief Rear Admiral Murray McNulty could do to roll out the red carpet. There was no red carpet. There were no accoutrements and symbols of state. There was hardly a box, barrel, or package marked with anything beyond PROPERTY OF UNITED STATE EXTRY.
McNulty was famous for making something out of nothing—the reason he had the job quartermastering this floating junkpile in the first place—but this was going to tax even his abilities to make amenities appear. There were a few rolls of butcher paper that could be easily enough digitized and turned red, white, and blue, so he had streamers. He gathered all the flags and potted plants he could find and created something resembling a decorated conference room. Then he had his crew start brewing coffee. He also sent down to Xenology for any instructions on sceeve diet. Did they even eat? No. They absorbed nutrients through their feet. A list of primary ingredients for making the slurry was attached. Drink? There was a sort of sniffing ritual that was documented in some files. Looked like having a stiff one to McAvoy. But, said CRYPT, the chemistry was complex. Impossible to duplicate without the proper equipment. McNulty had a look at the recipe and smiled.
Well, maybe not quite impossible.
Tetraterpenes. McNulty’s original training had been as a chemical engineer, and he knew that structure. It was the aromatic element in s
poiled steroids. And if there was one thing he had on hand, it was medical steroid medications. He had cases and cases of the stuff, now hardly used thanks to a salt activator that had made the entire class of drugs obsolete. They were sitting around decomposing, waiting in line for a garbage drop and atmospheric burn.
He could accelerate the process, and he knew just how to do it. Heat and mix it all up in a few gallons of Pine-Sol. Bottle it and voila—sceeve rotgut whisky! The entire process took thirty minutes. Of course, he had no idea what an actual sceeve would think about his concoction.
He’d soon find out.
McNulty decided to use the main Logistics office for the meeting because of its size. Other than cargo bays and warehouse space, it was the largest room on the Walt Whitman. Manifests and schedules were all digital, of course, but there was one large map that McNulty liked to keep physically updated with vessel markers and supply cards attached. If, somehow, all the chroma got wiped to a blank, he’d still have the big map in Logistics as a fallback. Besides, it was pretty and spoke to his particular mind—supremely organized, yet dynamic, always changing.
And then all was ready. The puck from the Skyhook arrived and out stepped three Secret Service agents, an Indian-Indian–looking woman, and the president of the United States.
An hour later, the other party to this meeting in space arrived.
The approach of the sceeve craft was nerve-wracking. Everything in McNulty’s make-up told him to Shoot this thing out of space. Don’t let it get close to the station! He held fire, of course. There were humans aboard the vessel, after all. At least, so he’d been told. McNulty personally handled the docking as the sceeve vessel matched speeds and his team extended a transfer collar. Alongside the vessel came the Joshua Humphreys. And there was yet another craft, as well, in the entourage. Sceeve as well but clearly no threat to the station or anything else. It looked like a football that had blasted itself inside-out.
And then the docking was done. The sceeve vessel-without-designation was attached to his space station with a nano-created band. Apparently, it—they, these sceeve—weren’t coming to kill. The thought that they might even have come in peace McNulty didn’t take very seriously.