The Ninth Circle

by R. M. Meluch

  “How do we get there?” Leo asked from the helm. “Alive.”

  “Wait them out?” Galeo suggested. “We’re almost safe as long as we stay FTL.”

  Nox didn’t like it. “The longer we wait, the more time they have to figure out a way to get at us. Like Caesar found a way to get at us.”

  “How did he do that?” asked Nicanor. “Do we know?”

  “We don’t,” said Nox. “All I can guess is he got some kind of tracking code from the Italian government or from the manufacturer.”

  None of them liked the idea of waiting.

  “We have our choice of executioners,” said Leo. “There’s a whole bunch of little skat. Then there’s the space battleship.”

  “All we need to do is get into the atmosphere before they get a lock on us. Even the Americans won’t blow up an antimatter-powered vessel inside the atmosphere,” said Nox.

  “That’s all,” said Leo fatalistically. “Piece of cake.”

  Nox told him, “Keep us in as tight to the atmosphere as you can without losing stealth before we try entry. At least it will take out most of their possible shots. They can’t shoot downward.”

  “Just what makes you think they can’t shoot down?”

  “Because they’re not shooting down,” said Nox. “Play back the tactical log again. You’ll see. They don’t want to shoot at the planet.”

  Pallas saw what Nox meant. “They’re guarding the planet. They don’t dare miss.”

  “Neither do I.” Leo slammed the Xerxes back through the light barrier to sublight speed. The transition made the ship instrument-visible for a moment.

  That moment brought not just a shower of tags and shots, but converging hostiles.

  The Swifts were coming off their positions hugging the planet.

  The Xerxes regained its stealth after its transition to sublight, and Leo changed course. Changed course again. He drove the undetectable ship on a jagged path around the world, while the Swifts swarmed toward each of its last sightings.

  “Wing. This is Wing Leader. Do not let yourselves get drawn off the horizon! You will be flanked!”

  Bagheera ran in, unseen, under the Swifts, straight at the planet.

  “Too steep! Too steep! Leo, we’re too—”

  Shit!

  Tactical: “Target sighted! He’s entering atmo!”

  Targeting: “There he goes. There he goes.”

  Tracking: “Here he comes! Here he comes!”

  “He bounced!” Tactical cried, coming out of his seat. “He bounced off the air! Get him! Get him! Get him!”

  Merrimack’s tracking system automatically sent the Xerxes’ loc to the targeting systems of all fighter craft.

  The Swifts opened fire.

  “Got him got him got him—”

  “Tag! You’re—”

  “Gone.”

  “What?”

  Bagheera escaped with a panic leap to FTL.

  Leo bent over his console, breathing hard. Finally spoke. “Screwed that, didn’t I?”

  “We’re still here, frater,” said Nox. Spilled milk was never on the menu. “Get us ready to sublight again. We know they’ll see us. And we know there’ll be another barrage of shooting. We can survive that.”

  “Shoot back,” said Orissus.

  “To what end?” said Nicanor. “Realistically.”

  “It could back ’em up,” said Orissus.

  “No. It will just scatter our attention from what we’re trying to get done, and it will annoy them,” said Nicanor.

  Nox added, “These hombres and hembras do not back up.”

  Galeo said, “Sure we don’t want to back off and try again later?”

  “No. This is it,” said Leo. “Get this done. Nox, where do you want me to drive?”

  “Snug in close to the battleship,” said Nox. “Get right under her.”

  “We’ll be vaporized,” said Faunus. “That’s the Merrimack.”

  “I know it’s the Merrimack,” said Nox. “She can’t see us. Get us between her and the planet. Tuck up close enough to smell her.”

  Leo, getting fanciful in the face of death, said, “You can’t smell in vacuum.”

  Leo piloted Bagheera into the shadow of the planet where Merrimack lurked. The space battleship had her running lights off. The view through the Xerxes’ viewports was black.

  Only Bagheera’s instrument display told the brothers when they passed silent, unseen, underneath Merrimack.

  “I can smell her,” said Nox.

  Merrimack will not shoot me.

  I think Merrimack will not shoot me.

  I hope it’s quick if Merrimack shoots me.

  The Swifts fanned out tight to the horizon, watching for the next appearance of the leopard.

  “Target sighted,” Marcander Vincent reported at the Tactical station. “We’re sitting on him!”

  Targeting: “He’s right here. And we don’t have a shot.”

  Commander Ryan sent: “Wing! This is Merrimack. You have the plot. Take him! We are already shielded against enemy fire. Take off your IFF and shoot us if you need to.”

  Red Dorset, at the ship’s com, reared back at his station. “Hell-o!”

  “Mister Dorset?” said Calli, her patience brittle. “Something more informative.”

  The com tech gave the captain his astonished report.

  Everyone on the command platform except for Targeting stared at Red Dorset.

  Heard a lot of words you didn’t ever hear out of Captain Carmel.

  Beam fire from racing Swifts lanced and deflected underneath the battleship, drawing a star spray pattern across the tactical monitors. Voices shouted over one another on the com.

  “Mine!”

  “Hit! I got a hit! Didn’t do snot.”

  “Gretta, Gretta, Gretta!”

  “I got a tag! Oh, stick, damn you!”

  “Target is entering atmo.”

  “He’s going stealth.”

  “He’s gone.”

  “He’s not gone!” Kerry Blue cried. “He’s leaving a wake. I’m going in!”

  The Xerxes had assumed full stealth, but its stealth didn’t mask the atmospheric turbulence behind it.

  TR Steele: “Alpha Six, you are below minimum altitude.”

  “But I’m not shooting!” Kerry cried. “I’m getting under him.”

  If she could just maneuver herself under that invisible plot she could knock him back up where the others could finish him off.

  TR Steele: “Alpha Flight! This is Wing Leader. Get down there and back up Alpha Six. Wing, stand ready to shoot what she throws at us.”

  Then it was Dingo’s voice on the com. “Wing. This is Merrimack. Cease fire. Abort operation. Return to ship.”

  Kerry Blue’s screech carried over the com: “No!”

  It was not a refusal. It was disbelief.

  “Obey orders, Flight Sergeant.” That was the captain’s voice that time.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said Kerry. She had a whole lot more to say with the com switched off.

  It was nothing Captain Carmel hadn’t just said for herself.

  Captain Carmel ordered, “Continue tracking the Xerxes.”

  “Lost it, sir,” said Tactical.

  “You can’t have,” said Commander Ryan.

  “I did, sir,” said Marcander Vincent. “And it was easy.”

  “We’re in!” Leo said, astonished to be in the atmosphere. Relieved to have that damned fighter out from under his keel.

  “Can they see us?” Nox demanded, urgent.

  “I don’t know. I’m driving.” Leo was changing direction at quick intervals. “Somebody else look.” He flapped a hand toward the systems monitors.

  Nicanor checked all the readouts. “Stealth engaged.”

  “Why are you still worried?” Orissus asked Nox. “You said they wouldn’t shoot us in the atmosphere.”

  “They won’t,” said Nox. “But they can still hook us and reel us back out to space.”
r />   “And then shoot us,” said Orissus.

  “Yes. Then they would shoot us,” said Nox.

  Leo changed course again, slowing down so not to leave an unnatural wake in the air. “Can they see us?”

  “We’ll know in a moment,” said Nicanor.

  “We should know already,” said Nox.

  No shots followed them down. No hooks enclosed them. No chase ships appeared on the monitors.

  “I think—” Leo paused for luck. “We might—” He looked out the viewports. Looked at his instruments. “Be in the clear.”

  “We made it?” said Galeo. “Really.”

  It took a few more course changes before they were sure.

  “When that Swift came up under us, I thought we were done,” said Faunus.

  “We should have shot it,” said Orissus.

  “Where are we?” said Pallas. “Where are we going?”

  Leo called up the coordinates of the LEN encampment. “We want to be here.” He tapped the readout. “Now I need to find out where we are.”

  They were in the wrong hemisphere. That was good, because there was snow on the ground here. They’d all had arctic training. Hated it.

  Leo piloted them to the summerside of the world and put the ship down six kilometers from the LEN camp.

  The LEN camp was where Caesar wanted his non-Roman Roman eyes.

  Leo shut down propulsion and artificial gravity. He kept the inertial shield on full. Kept the internal atmospherics on. Kept full stealth engaged. “We’re here.”

  Nox clapped Leo on the back, just below his neck. “We owe thee—I think—our lives.”

  “Aw, hell, Nox,” said Leo, shaky. He leaned back in his chair and let his arms dangle. He exhaled as if draining his lungs. He said, as he suddenly realized, “That was fun.”

  Galeo punched him in the biceps. Orissus snorted.

  Leo got up. “I am going to drink heavily and sleep for a week.” He left the control room.

  Faunus hooked an elbow over the back of his chair and tilted his saturnine face at Nox. Faunus squinted to see around the red, blue, and yellow scars. Recognition sank in. “I know who you look like.”

  Nox’s head bowed. The teeth and bones and feathers braided into his blond hair hung forward. Nox spoke wearily toward his own feet, “I know exactly who I look like.”

  Merrimack’s tracking systems lost their target’s last trail in the atmosphere.

  Tactical scanned the ground for any sign of the Xerxes. Marcander Vincent muttered, “Nothing, nothing, nothing.”

  “I’m getting a real appreciation for a Xerxes’ stealth capability,” said Tracking.

  Colonel Steele stalked up to the command deck, still in his flight gear except for the helmet. He appeared in the hatchway, red in the face. Red to his whole head. Angry.

  He needed to know why his dogs had been called off the pirates. He was too disciplined to demand an explanation from his commanders. He could only stand here on the command platform fuming and hope he got one. He deserved one.

  Captain Carmel noticed him. She didn’t ask what he wanted. She said, “There was a reason, Colonel.”

  Maybe not a good one. But there was a reason.

  “Hell-o!”

  “Mister Dorset? Something more informative?”

  “One of the pirates. He’s a Farragut.”

  “He’s a what?”

  “He’s a glory hallelujah Farragut.”

  “Can’t be a relation to our John Farragut.”

  “This one’s birth name is John Knox Farragut, Junior.”

  “Imposter. Did the State Department verify that?”

  “I didn’t get this from the State Department. I got it from a Roman bulletin. Nox Antonius, birth name John Knox Farragut Junior, stripped of Roman citizenship and gens name Antonius along with six others. They’re damnati.”

  Calli had instantly known that the report was real. Farraguts didn’t do anything small. John Farragut, Junior had come out of his brother’s shadow with a big bang. Junior had joined the other foxtrotting side!

  Calli was furious that she hadn’t heard about it from the State Department or from U.S. Central Intelligence or from Naval Intelligence. She’d had to learn about it through a Roman news source in the middle of battle. An announcement revoking the citizenship of Nox Antonius.

  And she’d called off her attack dogs.

  The U.S. Space Battleship Merrimack would not shoot a John Farragut. This John Farragut was a pirate and should be shot.

  But someone else would have to do it.

  24

  ADMIRAL FARRAGUT’S VOICE sounded confused over the com. “Where’s your vid, Cal?”

  “I don’t want you to see me,” said Captain Carmel. “It ain’t pretty.”

  “Cal, I’ve seen you with your skin off.”

  Captain Carmel turned her video on.

  John Farragut recoiled. “It’s too terrible. Turn it off.”

  Cal gave him a twisted smile.

  Captain Carmel was wearing an armband of LEN green. A green flag stood next to Old Glory on Merrimack’s command deck. Cal said contritely, “You never let this happen when she was your boat.”

  “What in creation did I send you into?” said Admiral Farragut.

  “It was a righteous call,” said Calli. “There are extraplanetaries here. The extraplanetaries are not friendly.”

  “Then why are you showing a green flag? You can declare martial law if the world is under alien attack.”

  “That’s the snag. The LEN are not denying the extraplanetary presence anymore. But they are denying their hostility.”

  “The aliens attacked the Spring Beauty,” Farragut said. “That’s a LEN ship. How is that not hostile?”

  Calli said, “According to the LEN report of the incident, Hamster crashed the Spring Beauty.”

  “She didn’t.”

  Calli nodded to that. “You can’t imagine the depth of denial here.”

  “What about the hostiles in orbit? What does the LEN say about those?”

  “The LEN is right. There aren’t any hostiles in orbit,” said Calli. “Now.”

  Admiral Farragut knew what that meant. “How many did you destroy?”

  “Buck and half,” said Calli. “The only hostiles now are on the ground. And they are hostile, but the LEN won’t admit it. The clokes even killed a LEN xeno. Doesn’t matter.”

  “Clokes?”

  “Don’t make me explain that term, John. It’s what we’re calling the extraplanetaries.”

  “The LEN took a fatality?”

  “The LEN ruled that a misunderstanding. The clokes were ‘just protecting themselves.’ And we have more hostiles than the clokes. It’s why I’m contacting you.”

  “More hostiles?”

  Calli didn’t want to speak. She moved into the cryptotech’s compartment off the command deck and picked up the call in there, hatch shut. She pushed the words out. “John, do you know where your brother John is?”

  The captain emerged from the cryptotech’s shack, demanding, “Mister Vincent, where is my pirate ship?”

  “Um,” said Tactical. “Everywhere.”

  The Xerxes emitted infinite fractured echoes with no apparent nexus.

  Suddenly Marcander Vincent cried out in surprise. “I got him! I got him!”

  “The pirate ship?” Calli moved to the Tactical station to see.

  “I don’t got him.” Tactical quickly backpedaled. “It’s not a Xerxes. I got something else.”

  “Exactly what do you have, Mister Vincent?” said Calli, patience thinning. Wondered why she had promised John Farragut she would keep this man on board.

  “It’s—I think it could be a cloke ship,” said Marcander Vincent.

  “Say again.”

  “A cloke ship wreck actually.” Marcander Vincent brought up a visual of the target. It had the look of a fuselage, mostly buried, with vegetation grown over it.

  “Antimatter containment?” Calli asked
.

  “No. No radiation either. It’s inert,” said Marcander Vincent. “Actually, it could even be a Nissan hut for all that.”

  It couldn’t be local make because there were no manufacturing facilities on Zoe.

  Commander Ryan agreed, “Cloke ship. Has to be. Would have been launched from our giant unidentified cylinder on a near pass by the star system.”

  The immense rotating continental ship might be a cloke ship. It might be the carrier that launched the orbs. It might be the carrier that launched this unidentified craft. It might be none of those. It was five light-years away and retreating. Calli said, “Do we have a data feed back from our drones on that carrier yet?”

  “Negative,” said Commander Ryan. “The drones are barely underway.”

  “Where is this?” Calli tapped at the image of the shipwreck on the planet.

  Computer-enhanced images did suggest a spaceship rather than a metal hut. The images also suggested a harsh landing. “Is it near the LEN camp?”

  “No, sir,” said Tactical. “This is on another continent.”

  “Then it didn’t bring the clokes,” said Dingo. “Not the lot I met anyway.”

  “Are there any more of these?” Calli asked.

  Now that he knew what to look for, Tactical located eleven of the alien craft scattered across the globe. None of them were putting out energy. All of them were more than half buried, and they were completely derelict.

  The distribution of the ships was confined between latitudes thirty-seven degrees North and South, except for one ship crashed in the arctic. That one had gone thoroughly wrong and was strewn across kilometers. The aliens’ target zone appeared to be the tropics.

  “These ships might have been the vanguard,” Commander Ryan suggested. “The scouts made it. The mothership didn’t,”

  Tactical said, “Or maybe the mothership didn’t like the scouting report and kept going.”

  Calli asked, “Are these ships the sources of the low-level radio signals we’ve been detecting?”