by M. D. Cooper
Sera wondered if her own background traits ever slipped through. There were secrets she kept that no one on this ship needed to know. Most of her past was far better off buried and forgotten.
“They still good as new?” Sera asked.
“Seem to be. Though, I should have insisted on an external array.”
“You were in a rush—and I appreciate the haste, even though it was unnecessary,” Sera said with a grin.
Tanis turned to Sera, her blue eyes appeared darker and more serious than normal—if that were possible.
“You don’t have to do this. I don’t want to risk you and your crew more than I already have. You could send me in on one of your escape pods. I can figure out a way to get to the Intrepid.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sera dismissed Tanis’s statement with a wave of her hand. “You helped my crew rescue me when you could have just cut and run. There’s no way I am just going to leave you high and dry.”
Tanis smiled and appeared to relax. “Thank you. I can’t imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t opened that container I was in.”
“I can. You would have gotten close and personal with Rebecca and her pointy needles”
“I’m sorry about that; my fault again.”
“Stop saying that.” Sera wasn’t sure what to make of this uncharacteristically self-effacing Tanis. “I’m right as rain and thoroughly enjoyed giving that bitch what she had coming.”
Tanis laughed. “I almost would have liked to have seen that…almost.” Then the general eyed Sera up and down and appeared to consider her words carefully. “We both know that most nano around here isn’t as good as mine. Considering what you likely had to work with—not to mention dealing with your new skin trying to kill you—how did you heal from that torture so fast?”
“I guess I was lucky. Helen found all the right stuff we needed on the station to keep me going,” Sera replied with a shrug, the lie coming easily after so many years—though she could see that Tanis wasn’t buying it.
“You handled the trauma of torture rather well—something I bet that they don’t teach you to in star-freighter captain school,” the general pressed.
“I wouldn’t say ‘rather well’, more like…I didn’t curl up into a fetal position. It’s not my first time being at the receiving end of someone’s ill intentions. I’ve already done all the puking and crying. Now I know how to repress it like a pro.”
Tanis’s skepticism was plainly displayed on her face. “I’ve come clean with you, Sera. Let me know when you are ready to do the same—but don’t give me your coy routine and trite little lies. You are far from who you appear to be. I hope your motives in helping me are as altruistic as you claim.” She paused and drew in a long breath, her eyes narrowing. “Because if you think there is some special advantage you can gain over the Intrepid once we arrive, you will be mistaken.”
Sera’s breath caught in her throat. Tanis’s blunt verbal assault took her completely off guard. For a moment, she wondered if Tanis suspected the truth about her.
Sera forced herself to resume breathing evenly. Though Tanis may know she was hiding things, Helen was right, she wouldn’t even come close to the truth if she guessed for a thousand years.
“You’ve got me, Tanis,” Sera said slowly. “I’ve not been completely honest with you, but I’m not yet ready to talk about my past…give me more time.”
Tanis’s look was skeptical, but she didn’t push. “The time is close. When we get to the Intrepid, Bob will discover your truth, I’d rather you share it willingly before he does.”
“Who is Bob?” Sera asked.
Tanis chuckled. “That’s a truth you’ll soon learn on your own.”
Neither woman spoke for a minute, and then Sera asked the question for which she had searched out Tanis in the first place.
“Things are likely to be hairy when we get insystem, how much of that fleet did you bring with you from Kapteyn’s Star?”
“Not as much as I wish we had,” Tanis sighed. “We swapped out the two Neptune class cruisers for the Orkney and the Dresden—two of the new Claymore class battle cruisers. Otherwise, it’s our initial fleet of eight cruisers, some twenty pushers, and a bevy of pinnaces, shuttles, and transports. We do have a lot more fighters than we left Sol with, but I don’t think even our new Arc-5s are going to be much of a match for modern craft pulling over 500gs. Not to mention that our ES shielding is not nearly as effective as your new grav shields.”
Sera whistled. “Still more than any colony ship I’ve ever heard of, but probably not a match for those AST dreadnaughts.”
“The Intrepid itself is a pretty formidable weapon. Its size also makes it hard to damage—bar the use of fusion bombs,” Tanis replied. “Though we try to keep it out of the thick of battle.”
“What about the pico?” Sera asked, afraid the answer would be no, but just as afraid that it may be yes.
Tanis nodded. “It’s there, we have more RMs than you’d like to know exist, and they’re all capable of carrying pico warheads.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Sera said with a shudder. She looked into Tanis’s eyes and could tell the general felt the same way. The pico was a weapon of last resort—every other avenue would have to be exhausted first.
Tanis glanced back at the sensor array’s maintenance console. “I should finish looking this over.”
“You’ve been on shift for half a day and we have seven hours before we’ll get a response from the system beacon’s active Link. Why don’t you catch sack till then? I can do the inspection.”
Tanis gave a tired smile. “I suppose I could use some rest…and it is your ship after all.”
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
STELLAR DATE: 10.26.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, EK Belt
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Tanis was on the bridge minutes later, one hand holding a cup of coffee and the other rubbing her face. “Does it have data on the Intrepid?” she asked.
Cheeky un-slaved scan from her console and directed it back to Tanis’s station.
“Doesn’t look like it,” the pilot said with a shake of her head. “Just the same as before, though with more up-to-date information.”
“It’s like the Intrepid really isn’t here…” Tanis sighed. “But the reports in New Eden definitely talked about a colony ship in Bollam’s.”
“Tanis, check the planets’ positions in scan with what we can see from here. The beacon’s scan data may be faked.”
Cheeky looked up from her console. “Fake! No one fakes system scan. They may as well ask for jump-point collisions!”
“I’ve seen it before,” Sera said, her voice solemn.
“Freaking, fucking… nut… I’m out of words!”
Cheeky may present a carefree exterior in nearly every aspect of her life; but when it came to piloting, and the strictures that kept starships plying the dark, she was a different person. She was right, too; faking scan was a disaster waiting to happen. Ships may be small in the vastness of space, but they all traveled between just a few points, which meant they were usually concentrated within the same areas.
“Damn…it is faked,” Tanis reported. “This looks like scan from over a month ago, they tried to blend it so that the planets were in the right positions, but there are ships clearly heading to places that have since moved.”
“We need to find out what is going on in this system and fast. Cheeky, let’s burn some antimatter.”
Sera stood and threw Sabri
na’s own scan data on the bridge’s main holo tank. “Looks strangely clear,” the captain muttered.
The space they were traveling through was near a commonly used jump point, which the ship’s scan showed it to be deserted.
Tanis frowned at her readouts. “I’m betting that there is real scan somewhere. Whoever has botched the signal must still want to know where things are themselves. Good data has to be in there somewhere.”
She and Angela broke down the data stream from the system’s beacon and began sifting through its components for any hidden information while Sera sent an update to the rest of the crew. Over the next half hour, everyone visited the bridge to ask if they were really in a system with no scan.
Twenty minutes later, Tanis let out a cry of triumph.
“Found it! I figured the best place to hide the real scan was within the fake one. There were several distorted portions of the signal, and sure enough one of them contained the carrier wave for valid data. I’m configuring our system to read from it.”
Sera set her screen to display the system’s readout, and within a minute, it flicked from the boring show of regular, light traffic to an entirely different tableau. Everyone took a deep breath and then uttered a variety of curses.
The real data showed a heavy cluster of ships near the system’s sixth planet, the 6MJ gas giant named Kithari. Sera selected that planet and zoomed in. The ships were grouped near one of its larger moons, a world named Fierra, which appeared to be in the late stages of terraforming. She selected the planet and all space within two hundred thousand kilometers and threw it up on the bridge’s main holo tank. Cheeky and Tanis swiveled in their chairs to gaze at the results.
It was a mess.
Seven thousand kilometers from the moon, in an equatorial orbit, lay the Intrepid, its fleet fully deployed. Roughly a hundred-thousand kilometers beyond lay a fleet consisting of fifty-two destroyers and light cruisers. The scan data identified them as Bollam’s World Space Force. The majority of ships in this fleet were positioned at strategic points that appeared to both protect and corral the Intrepid.
Another fleet held position fifty-thousand kilometers north of the moon, it consisted of several light cruisers and over two-hundred corvettes. A similar formation of nearly the same composition held position roughly the same distance south of the moon.
Beyond all the fleets lay the eleven AST dreadnaughts, holding station in a half-ring around the moon’s parent world.
“How the hell did they beat us here?” Sera cursed.
“They must have transitioned back to regular space and boosted up, before going back into FTL,” Cheeky said, her brow furrowed.
“I realize that, it was rhetorical,” Sera said.
“Oh.”
Tanis let out a soft chuckle, then a good long laugh. When she stopped, she looked up to see Sera, Cheeky, and Cargo staring at her.
“Sorry, it’s just par for the course,” Tanis said, still chuckling. “They’ve gone and got themselves into quite the mess. Who do you think those corvette fleets are?”
Sera frowned. “Someday I’d like to hear the whole story of how you guys got here. As for those two light fleets…they’re…aw shit.”
“That good, eh?” Tanis asked.
“Our pirate friends have come for the fun. Rebecca and her ships are at the north pole and Padre is at the south end. Looks like they decided to go hunting for the Intrepid without you.”
“How friendly are any of those factions likely to become with each other?”
“I’d say less friendly, more hostile. Scan shows several small debris fields. I’ll bet there have already been some altercations.”
“I’m surprised that more of the Bollam’s space force isn’t deployed,” Cargo said. “They must have thousands of ships in the system.”
“They’re moving more in, but I bet the arrival of the AST is giving them pause,” Tanis said. “You can see them gathering forces at key points. I bet they’re also readying some nice big rail guns.”
“They’ll have some, but people don’t really use rails defensively anymore,” Sera said as she examined the Bollam’s fleet positions. “With inertial dampeners, ships can jink well out of the way of a rail’s slug.”
Tanis frowned. “That may be true, but what about grapeshot? You don’t fire where they are, but where you expect them to be.”
“Grapeshot?” Cheeky asked.
“Rail-fired shells filled with millions of pebbles. You fill all reasonable approaches with them. People can jink all they want, they’ll just jink into the grapeshot. Then you use their hesitation against them and send in the slugs, or beams, if they are close enough,” Tanis replied.
“You lived in a brutal time,” Cargo commented.
“War is always brutal. But I need to get to my ship, and you need to deliver on your promise,” Tanis said to Sera, her expression almost pleading.
Sera smiled and nodded to Tanis before she turned to their pilot. “Cheeky? How does it look?”
“Well, provided no one blows us to pieces, I can make it happen. Based on the axial tilt of the planet, and everyone’s orbits, there will be a period in about five hours where only a few of Rebecca’s ships will have Intrepid in their sights. She’s a big mutha, so I bet if I work up the right approach vector we can use her to hide us and get in almost entirely unseen. I’ll have to work out the timing and coast—even hiding behind the Intrepid’s girth, an AP trail would be plain as day.”
“Good plan,” Sera said. “Why don’t you kill thrust now, and we’ll coast till you have your path worked up. Use minimal burn; we’ll try to stay as dark as possible. Nix our beacon, too. No need to let Rebecca know her favorite pincushion is within reach.”
“Can they detect the graviton emissions from our shielding?” Tanis asked.
Sera ran a hand through her hair. “This close to a 6MJ jovian they shouldn’t be able to. Plus, I’m not really comfortable disabling shields. This system still has a lot of stuff flying around.”
“Having been in a ship hit by this system’s debris, I see your point,” Tanis acknowledged with a nod. “I’ll get a transmission ready to burst to the Intrepid when we have a clear line to them. Don’t want them thinking we’re hostile.”
Sera hadn’t even thought of that. Sabrina’s new shields were good, but she didn’t want to see how well they’d hold up against the radiation wash from one of the tugs patrolling around the Intrepid, let alone the beams on those cruisers.
The next few hours passed quietly. Sabrina had a lot of speed to burn off before making her approach; rather than turning and braking, Cheeky altered the rear shields emit negative gravitons. The effect caused enough drag to slow them down and line up on the desired approach vector.
Sera was making a light lunch for herself in the mess when Flaherty came in and closed the galley door. She looked up at the dour man and smiled. “How are you today?”
Flaherty grunted. “Been better.” He sloshed some semi-warm coffee into a mug and sat down. “It always catches up with you, doesn’t it?”
“Noticed that too, did you?”
His deadly serious eyes bored into hers. “You aren’t going to be able to run from it forever.”
Sera spun to face him directly, her eyes angry, even though her voice was calm. “I am helping a friend here. This is not fate or anything, just random events.”
Flaherty let out a long, exasperated sigh. “You know I’ll always be here to watch your back. But some day you are going to have to own up to your destiny. We’re doing the right thing now, but there are a lot of other things that could also use your attention—a lot more important than some energy module.” With that, the large man stood and left the wardroom, his near-full cup of coffee left on the table.
Sera leaned against the counter and let out a long breath. Suddenly, the ship seemed too close and small about her. Her synthetic skin felt like it was constricting her, like she couldn’t breathe. A wave of dizziness hit her and Sera
closed her eyes, willing herself to be calm. She could do this; she would not repeat past mistakes. Tanis and the Intrepid would live to see another journey to a star where they could be left out of the messes this close to the core. Sera vowed it.
Sera wondered what the AI saw, what her wisdom and years told her about the future.
Helen sent out an affirmative wave of agreement.
ANDROMEDA
STELLAR DATE: 10.26.8927 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Sabrina, EK Belt
REGION: Bollam’s World System, Bollam’s World Federation
Tanis scoured the background noise in the system, looking for a range with little use and high levels of stellar noise.
Tanis said and began to calibrate Sabrina’s transmitter to piggyback on the planet’s emissions.
Angela replied with a wink.
“Intrepid, this is General Tanis Richards, hope this message finds you well. I’m in a small freighter, which will begin making an approach to your position in roughly ten minutes. We expect to be ready to dock in four hours and twenty-nine minutes. Our vector will be southerly to avoid detection from your friends. We will be alone and dark. Please do not fire on us. Please do not respond unless absolutely necessary. We’re not exactly on friendly terms with some of the folks out there, either.”
Tanis set the system to repeat the message three times and then killed the transmission. She turned to Cheeky.