In the Black

by Patrick S. Tomlinson

  “That’s our deadline, people. We have to scarecrow big and loud enough before then to turn them away so we don’t have to kill them.”

  “We know the drill, mum,” Warner said.

  “Respectfully, Weps, but I don’t think they’re running a drill this time.”

  “CL on deck!” the marine guard called out. Nesbit stepped through the hatch into the CIC with confidence, centered, in a freshly pressed shirt.

  “What do we have here, Captain?”

  “Incursion attempt number three,” Susan said. “I think they’re serious this time.”

  “Well, you did shove a giant rock up their … do they have asses?”

  “Cloaca, technically,” Miguel said to a round of nervous laughter from the assembled crew.

  “You think they’re really going to cross the line?” Nesbit asked.

  “We’re operating under that assumption. With their oiler scattered across an AU, their backs are against the wall. They may not even have enough left in the tanks to get home. If they’re running on fumes, their only chance is to go through us and pillage the factory over Grendel and bolt before fleet HQ sends reinforcements.”

  “Why hasn’t that happened yet?” Nesbit asked. “We’ve been fucking around out here with an unknown cruiser class that out-masses us by fifty percent for weeks. The Admiralty seriously couldn’t shake a frigate loose to back us up?”

  “I’ve asked that very question several times at ever-increasing volume,” Susan said. “Their answers have not been inspiring.”

  “They’ve just kicked up to emergency burn, mum,” Mattu reported, professionalism tamping down on the anxiety lurking at the edges of her voice.

  “Match them.”

  Everyone in the CIC looked at her. They knew Ansari was capable of emergency flank speed, they’d been the first crew to take her out after refitting. Running at full military thrust was part of passing her space trial certifications.

  But that had happened in the safety of the fleet’s testing range with a chaser corvette monitoring their progress, not with an alien cruiser bristling with weapons and threatening death bearing down on them. The order to go to emergency flank speed, even more than destroying the oiler remotely, brought the true gravity of their situation crashing home.

  “Well?” Miguel barked angrily. “Don’t just sit there staring into each other’s slack-jawed cake holes. You heard the lady, start burning antimatter!”

  “Yes, sir!” Broadchurch answered, the spell broken. “Ramping up to emergency flank speed.”

  “Our monocle will have trouble keeping up at these relative velocities if we start maneuvering very hard, mum,” Mattu said.

  “Noted, Scopes. Do your best,” Susan answered without taking her eyes off the countdown. The distance and time fell away with renewed enthusiasm under such hard acceleration. Much longer, and both of them would build up so much delta-v that crossing the line became inevitable, even under a max-g turn.

  The only option then would be to bubble out, but unless the Xre had drastically improved on their ring recharge rates, that wouldn’t be in the cards until after they’d crossed the line, either.

  “We’re being painted with range-finding lasers, mum,” Warner said placidly.

  “That’s only fair.”

  “I can’t deploy retroreflectors while under acceleration, mum.”

  “I’m aware,” Susan said. “Launch ten Mk IXs port and ten starboard, keep their drives cold, but link them into our targeting data.”

  “Ten birds left, ten birds right, cold drives and hot links, aye, mum!”

  Miguel cleared his throat.

  “Sorry, XO,” Warner said. “Didn’t mean to skip over you. Just eager is all.”

  “Mmhmm.” Miguel crossed his arms.

  “Later you two,” Susan said a little saltier than she intended, but for God’s sake, they were in a hot zone.

  “Boomers away,” Warner reported as the slight shudder of the ripple-fire of seven hundred tons of anti-ship missiles echoed through Ansari’s bones. “Uplinks stable, targeting data accepted. Missiles orienting themselves toward Bandit One. Hold one … missile A2C showing a thruster malfunction. Running diagnos—Nevermind, there it goes. Both flights ready and waiting for order to burn.”

  “Thank you, Guns. Scopes, get two decoys prepped. But hold off on launch until—”

  “Aspect change!” Mattu blurted out. “Bandit One has … wait. Power surge.”

  “Are they charging capacitors?”

  “No, it’s … this doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t make sense, Scopes? Spit it out!”

  “There’s been a gamma spike.”

  “How? They’re already at emergency burn.”

  “Acceleration falling off, half, one-third. Target orientation is changing. Negative three degrees z-axis, five degrees y-axis, half a degree per second.”

  “Are they changing course?”

  “No, bearing unchanged. They’re listing, mum.”

  “And still headed straight for the Red Line.”

  “Yes, mum, but their accel has dropped off entirely now. They’re ballistic.”

  “What the hell are we supposed to make of that?” Miguel asked.

  “I don’t know. Explosion?” Susan said.

  “Failures involving antimatter are usually a little more catastrophic than this.”

  That was true enough, as they’d been reminded not six hours ago. Susan rubbed at her jaw. “Maybe they lost containment on just one of their fusion rocket bells? That would mean what, a few grams of AM got away from them? Whatever was in the intermix chamber?”

  “Or they’re faking it and wake up again the second they cross the line or we’re inside their offensive envelope and can’t maneuver out before getting shanked.”

  “Is there any debris?”

  “Radar is picking up a small cloud of objects spreading out from Bandit One at between one- and four-hundred meters per second.”

  “How many? How big?”

  “Several dozen, varying between our minimum detection threshold and about three meters in size.”

  “Nothing they couldn’t shove out an airlock,” Miguel whispered.

  “Bandit One’s EM signature just crashed,” Mattu said.

  “Their stealth systems kicked in,” Warner said. “They’re ghosting us.”

  “No, they’re still showing up on radar/lidar,” Mattu said. “Their EM emissions have just—stopped. I think they’ve lost main power. They’re dead in space, mum. Damn, they’re venting atmosphere.”

  “Okay, that’s dedication,” Miguel said. Susan knew what he meant. No spacers, of either species, just threw away air. Nothing, not fuel, food, water, or heat, killed you faster than running out of air.

  “Wait one…” Mattu wiped sweat away from her forehead. Susan imagined it was probably cold. Every member of the bridge crew looked at the Drone Integration Station with desperate eyes, hungry for Mattu’s next words.

  She swallowed hard. “They’re hailing. Transmitted in the clear. It’s being routed through their translation matrix.”

  “Shit.” Susan’s jaw clenched involuntarily. “Well, let’s hear it.”

  “Yes’m,” Mattu said, then routed the feed she heard through to the CIC’s speakers. A heavily processed, synthesized voice filled the room.

  “We Chusexx harmony. We announce Day in May. Rotting light leak caverns. Source energy failure. Implore not throw light-spear or javelin. Bellies to sky.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Nesbit asked incredulously.

  “Mayday,” Susan answered for him. “It’s a distress call.”

  * * *

  “I said maximum thrust, Kivits.”

  “But we have no way to replenish our annihilation fuel, Derstu. Whatever we burn, we cannot replace.”

  “Yes, I was here for that,” Thuk said. “They need to think us desperate. Desperate enough to burn through our supply on a sacrificial charge. So, w
e consume a small fraction of our annihilation fuel to keep the ruse going and draw them across the line.”

  “Very well, Derstu. I withdraw my objection.”

  “Thank you. Tiller, maximum thrust. Unless anyone else has something to contribute?”

  No one did. The Chusexx responded to the tiller attendant’s input.

  “Maximum thrust, Derstu,” the tiller alcove reported.

  “Shall we ready our light-spears and javelins?” Kivits asked.

  Thuk stretched a midarm. “If it will make you feel better.”

  Several attendants chortled softly until a stern look from their dulac clicked their mandibles shut. Still, it had the defusing effect Thuk had hoped for.

  “It would indeed, Derstu.”

  “Very well, then. Charge light-spears and unsheathe a flight of twelve javelins. Confirm the human ship’s range and velocity with a focus beam. Let them know we stare down a shaft at them.”

  The harmony busied itself with preparation. For his part, Thuk sat back in his chair and took a moment in simple appreciation of their efforts. His crew was efficient and competent, like a well-run mound. He couldn’t take credit for it, of course, they’d been selected for duty aboard the Xre’s newest and greatest ship of war, after all. They had floated to the top long before he’d been given the dubious honor of serving them.

  Still, if he had to be derstu, this was a fine harmony to—

  With the suddenness of a bolt from the heavens, the Chusexx bucked sideways and threw Thuk painfully into the side of his chair, hard enough to knock the air from his chest. He felt one of the plates on his abdomen give way with a snap. The mighty ship’s bones groaned around them as if it, too, was in agony.

  “What the seething Abyss was that?” Kivits shouted before Thuk caught back up to his breath.

  “Reports are scattered and confused,” Hurg said, her voice high and tight like a plucked string.

  “Somebody sing,” Thuk wheezed, his vision blurring at the edges from the pain. “What’s happened to our home?”

  “Thrust is falling away,” the tiller station’s attendant shouted. “Compensating … no effect. Engines unresponsive. We’re tumbling.”

  “Can you stabilize?”

  “No, Derstu. Three thruster clusters are misfiring. There’s a short somewhere in the control sequence. They’re exacerbating the tumble.”

  “Cut them out of the power grid and reassess. And Kivits, put our javelins back into hibernation!”

  “Already engaged.”

  Another jolt shook the floor beneath their feet, not as sharp or hard as the first, but even more alarming, because as soon as it ended, so did the artificial gravity. Everyone scrambled to find purchase on their chairs, footrests, or the ribs of their alcoves to avoid floating free in the cavern.

  “Now what?” Thuk demanded angrily.

  “Source energy’s down. Switched to backups. Gravity system resetting.”

  “Leave it until we know what’s happening, we may need the power elsewhere. Why’d source energy shut down?” A new, sharp alert tone answered Thuk’s question.

  “Rotting light leak! Our shield cone is breached,” Hurg shouted.

  “How bad?”

  “Contamination alarms in caverns from ribs L-127 through L-103 and spreading forward.”

  Thuk shivered. Rotting light had already flooded almost a fifth of the habitable caverns starting at their cone shield on up. If it reached the central nexus, or the farms …

  “Seal everything forward of rib L-90. Vent unoccupied caverns into space.”

  “And the occupied caverns?” Hurg asked, the rest of the question left to hang in the air between them.

  “Seal them and shut them off from the air-changers. They can go into torpor and last a day or more on the air they have.”

  “If they’ve not already been poisoned by rotting light,” Kivits said.

  “One thing at a time. This is the most we can do for them right now.”

  “Derstu,” the tiller attendant called out. “I can’t restart the engines with the shield cone breached, not even if we get source energy back. The emergency systems are in lockdown and I can’t supersede.”

  “Not even physically?”

  “The physical supersede is inside the contaminated zone.”

  Naturally, Thuk thought. That was it, then. They weren’t going to fix the shield cone and restore maneuverability before the Chusexx floated across the treaty line and into the waiting claws of the human cruiser. Unless …

  “Do we have enough reserve to spin a seedpod?”

  “To where?”

  “Nowhere, just put one up and keep it up until we make repairs. It’ll keep the humans’ light-spears and javelins from carving us up like a game animal.”

  “I’m sorry, Derstu, but no. We’re short the necessary energy by an order of magnitude.”

  Thuk’s hopes sank into the abyss. He was out of ideas, and rapidly running out of time.

  “Hurg, please open a link to the human ship. Ears only.”

  “A link?” Kivits said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Sing for our lives, Dulac. Hurg, are we ready?”

  “Yes, Derstu. Link open.”

  Thuk steadied himself in his chair with his midhands. The humans couldn’t see him through an ears-only link, but it was more for his confidence than anything. He needed to feel grounded among the chaos and calamity, even if it was illusionary.

  Wincing with each breath through the pain in his side, he began. “We are the harmony of the Chussex. We announce a…” What was that senseless human expression for an emergency? “… day in may. Rotting light is leaking into our caverns, and source energy has failed. Please do not throw your light-spears or javelins. Our bellies face the sky.”

  Thuk made a decapitating gesture with a blood-claw on his primehand. Hurg cut off the cavern’s ears.

  “Did it take?”

  “Yes, Derstu. Your song captured.”

  “Set it on a loop and let it sing until they respond. Are those cursed javelins in hibernation yet?”

  “They’re sleeping, Derstu,” Kivits confirmed.

  Thuk exhaled despite the pain in his side. The last thing he wanted were live javelins, in hand, just waiting for a lucky shot from the human ship to detonate their cores and blow the ship in half for them. If he was going to die, he’d prefer his shell pierced by his enemy’s weapons instead of being run through by his own.

  “Thank you, Dulac.”

  “What do we do now?” Hurg asked for the entire cavern.

  “The simplest thing anyone can do, Attendant,” Thuk said. “Await death or deliverance.”

  * * *

  “They’re still coming, mum,” Mattu said. “EM emissions just ticked up a bit. They may have gotten auxiliary power up, but it’s still way below baseline. And they’re still leaking gamma.”

  Susan glanced up at the countdown above the plot. Five minutes until the Xre ship crossed the line. Five minutes until she was obligated by her orders to kill them.

  “How much gamma, Scopes?” she asked. “Lethal?”

  “I don’t know what a lethal dose for Xre is, mum. I can loop Doc Cargill in and ask her?”

  “No time,” Miguel said. “Mum, I don’t want to intrude on your thoughts, but our orders are clear and unambiguous. We must torch them if they cross the Red Line. That’s how it’s been for seventy years.”

  “We also have a duty to respond to distress calls, of any flag. Which takes precedence? I think that’s my call to make, that’s why they gave me the hat.”

  “They could still be playing possum, mum. We could fake up every part of this ‘accident’ with a couple hours’ notice. Hell, that may even be why they took so long to respond. They’re setting us up for an ambush.”

  “Exactly,” Nesbit broke in. “They’re playing us. Listen to your XO.”

  “They’re half again our tonnage.” Susan waved a hand at the real-time rendering of their
foe. “Why would they need to ambush us?”

  “We’re not exactly a soft target like that fleet tender was, mum. We’ve already taken a shot at them once. They know we’ll fight. If the tables were turned, would you do anything less than absolutely maximize our tactical advantage before committing?”

  “No,” Susan permitted. “And yet…”

  Susan’s training and sense of duty crashed headlong against her empathy. Yes, this wily Xre commander had already outsmarted her once with clever tricks, but that was just it. From the start of this whole operation, they’d been bold, ordering an armed drone into her space to destroy platforms under her nose. They’d played on her belief no one would have the cast-iron tits to cross the line when they’d escaped the last time. They were all the actions of a brave warrior who wouldn’t reduce themselves to playing dead just to gain advantage. The very idea would be revolting to them.

  At least that’s what Susan told herself as the decision she’d already made solidified in her mind.

  “No. They’re really in trouble. This guy is a Grade A hard-ass, he’s not faking injury. That’s beneath him.”

  “Mum,” Miguel began, but Susan cut him off.

  “They’re spacers, Miguel. Just like us. Sent out here in the black to poke at monsters, by monsters. And I won’t kill them when they’re begging for mercy, not until I’m sure they’re faking. Because if the tables were turned, I’d be praying they gave us the same chance.”

  Miguel’s frown dug trenches in his cheeks, but he returned to parade ground attention at her side and opened a link to the shuttle bay. “Flight Ops, prepare for rescue operations. Marine commander, ready a security team in hardsuits. Damage control supervisor, equip a team and have them waiting in the shuttle bay in ten minutes. Sickbay, send a detail to Flight Ops prepped and ready to treat Xre casualties. Repeat, Xre casualties. Full biological and radiological protocols.”

  “What?” Nesbit half-shouted. “You can’t be serious. We’ve got to stop them short of the line. That’s the only reason we’re out here!”